Falling Down Two
by WRTRD
Summary: A follow-up to "Falling Down," which picks up the morning after that story ended and will finish seven and a half months later. Complete.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: The only part of Castle that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** The day after I finished "Falling Down" it occurred to me that there was something I wanted to explore about Beckett's final run at Bracken. This chapter has a long set-up, but I thought it necessary for a variety of reasons, including the need to get inside Beckett's mind. Despite some of what will happen in this story, I promise you two things: she won't fall off the wagon again and there will be a happy ending.

Neither of them wants to wait to get married.

"We've been together for a long time," she says at breakfast, the morning after she proposed to him.

"And flirting for ages before that," he agrees. "We're not exactly rushing into it."

She keeps staring at the ring that he slipped onto her finger last night, the one that he'd been secretly carrying in his pocket since the day after her 33rd birthday. She thought that it might feel strange, but it feels perfect, as if it had always been there. She's been sober for a year, and she's well grounded. In seven weeks she'll turn 34, and she's very aware of her biological clock.

Before they're halfway through their coffee they settle on a wedding date, barely two months away: Saturday, December first, which will give everyone a chance to recover from Thanksgiving before diving into Christmas.

"You sure about getting married here, Kate? In the loft?" Honey from the bagel that he's holding has dripped onto his bare chest, which is both arousing and distracting, but this is an important conversation so she forces herself to focus on his face. "You sure you don't want a zillion guests and a hundred white doves and valet parking and a tent festooned with roses and peonies and a five-foot-high cake and a symphony orchestra playing while your father walks you down the aisle beneath the summer sky?"

"Positive. The only part of that I want is my father walking me down the aisle, if you can call a short path between some chairs in the living room an aisle. Which I can."

"And the mayor doing the honors?"

"The mayor's the one who made it possible for us to be partners at work, so it seems apposite that he's the one who oversees our being partners in life."

He leans across the counter and brushes his hand across her cheek. "Do you know what it does to me when you use a word like 'apposite' this early in the morning?"

She smiles. She hadn't used it deliberately; her subconscious must be responsible. Thank you, Dr. Freud. "Mm-hmm."

"You okay with me being the groom?"

"Yup. You okay with me being the bride?"

"Yup."

"Okay, then. Do you want to kiss the bride?"

"I do."

"Good. And I see you already know the words for the service."

Under absolutely no circumstances would he say, "I've had practice." He hopes that she's not thinking of it, either. What he does say is, "Guess it's time to go to work," but not until after he kisses her.

"I'm going to take off this spectacular ring," she says, gazing at it again, "and wear it on a chain around my neck until we tell everyone."

xxxxxx (Two-month time jump)

The wedding is as perfect as her engagement ring. She wears her mother's exquisite dress, which makes her feel that she's here with them, watching over them, giving them her blessing. When Castle sees Kate come down the stairs with Jim, he's so overcome that he cries. They have no attendants, just their parents and Alexis standing up for them as the mayor officiates and they exchange vows. The sound of twenty guests cheering is as loud as if there were ten times that number. Everyone dances and sings and eats a four-star meal and makes toasts with Champagne and with sparkling cider. They'll take a honeymoon next summer; for now they're spending two nights at a suite at the St. Regis Hotel, and on Monday–they are taking one day off from work in honor of the occasion–they'll relax at home.

"This bathroom is bigger than my first apartment," she says on Sunday morning, leaning back against him in the oversized tub.

"Mine, too," he says. "And mine came furnished with menacing cockroaches. They were so big that they used to stand up on their back legs and wave the other ones around as if they were about to challenge me to a fight. They probably would have won."

"That's a good story, Castle. Remember to tell it to our kids."

He's so surprised that he sits upright, which results in some of the bubbly water sloshing out onto the marble floor. "Kids? Are you pregnant?"

"Noooo, not quite ready for that. We got married yesterday." She waits for him to settle down, then tips her head back to look at him. "I'm starving, though. Aren't you?"

When he laughs she can feel the vibration across her shoulders, down her back, her butt, and her thighs, like some short but highly personalized massage. "Yes, I'm starving. You gave me a hell of a workout last night, Kate. And this morning."

"Why do you think I've been soaking in here for so long? I think you found previously unknown muscles in my body. And spots."

"Spots?"

"Places." She raises one eyebrow.

He laughs again. When he recovers he says, "Well, since we both need to rebuild our strength, I'm going to get out and phone down for an enormous breakfast."

He puts on a robe and pads out to the living room. While he's placing their order she dries off and gets into the other robe provided by the hotel, running her fingers down one arm. Mmmm, cashmere. Nice. She walks to the far side of the living room to look through a round window from which she can see Central Park, four blocks to the north. It's a beautiful view, despite scudding gray clouds that could be bringing snow. She startles when she hears a knock and a voice announcing room service. "Wait, wait, wait, Castle, don't let him in yet. Our bedroom."

"What about it?"

"I don't want him to see what we did to it, for God's sake. Pillows all over the floor, those scarves tied to the bedposts." She runs to the bedroom, shuts the door behind her, and doesn't emerge until he repeatedly assures her that they're alone.

"By the way," he says a few minutes later, waving a piece of bacon. "Good thinking, to bring those scarves."

"Thank you."

"Oh, thank _you_."

"I'd say the pleasure was ours, wouldn't you?"

"I would."

"They eat quietly for a while, glancing at the food only long enough to ensure that their forks are hitting their targets. The rest of the time they're looking at each other.

It's she who breaks the heated silence. "I know you're dying to see the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. It's one of the reasons you chose this hotel, isn't it? We can walk there in less than ten minutes."

"I thought we'd do that this afternoon. Right now I want to work off some of this mountain of food I've just eaten. All this eye sex we've been having has given me some ideas."

"It has, huh?"

"Definitely."

"I untied the scarves when the waiter came up. Want me to put them back?"

"Also definitely."

Eye sex leads to a great deal of full-body sex, and they don't get to the tree until quarter to eight, by which time it's dark. "It's much better this way," he insists. "You can appreciate the lights more."

They stroll from there to a nearby restaurant for dinner, and over dessert she announces, "I'm not quite ready for a baby, but you know what I am ready for? A dog."

"Truly?"

"Truly."

Later that evening they sit in their enormous, luxurious hotel bed, sharing an iPad as they scroll through Petfinder and local shelter websites. "Stop," he says. "Why didn't I think of this before? There's one right around the corner from us, on Centre Street. I've been by it a million times, seen volunteers walking the dogs." When he clicks on the link for adoptables, they point to the same puppy in the fourteenth row and say, "That one." He's a little black ball, unnecessarily identified as "hound mix," looking straight at them with a pick me! pick me! expression.

"He's adorable," Castle says.

"He's perfect. But it's the name, too, right?"

"Goes without saying."

The three-month old puppy is Gummy Bear. At five o'clock the following afternoon he's theirs, and they take him home.

For the next three months, they live in a bubble. Things are going well at work. They're crazy about the dog–who quickly becomes just Gummy–and vice versa. They have a magical Christmas; kiss at midnight on the banks of the icy Hudson as 2013 gives way to 2014, and revel in a Valentine's Day of epic proportions.

On the first Sunday in March, the bubble bursts. It's a cold, sleety day that's good for nothing but staying indoors. They've taken Gummy out twice this morning, each time in a different coat since Castle had insisted that he have several, for a variety of weather conditions. "You can't have him wearing a raincoat if it's snowing," he'd said. "Doesn't make sense."

Around eleven, just as she's put a batch of brownies in the oven for her AA meeting tomorrow evening, her phone rings. It's Gates, who wants to know how soon she can get to the precinct.

"Uh, sir, I'm actually not on call today."

"I'm aware of that. But something has come up and I'm afraid it can't wait."

She assures her that she's on her way, and is about to click off when the Captain adds, "Come alone. Do not bring Mister Castle."

This time Beckett does end the call. "Shit."

"What's up?"

"Gates told me to come in. Alone. Not with you."

He looks a little concerned. "Did she say why?"

"No. I'm sure I'm not supposed to tell you, but she didn't say that, so I am." She shrugs her shoulders. "Don't worry. I'll be home soon. Could you take the brownies out when the timer goes off, please? Should be in twenty minutes, maybe a little less."

"Sure. May I have one?"

"Yes, but only because you're watching over them for me." She kisses him, scratches Gummy behind the ears, and puts on her coat and boots. "Make sure it's only one," she says from the front door. "Most people in AA have an even worse sweet tooth than you. And don't give any to Gums."

"I know," he says solemnly. "Ix-nay on the ocolate-chay when it comes to dogs."

"He's a smart little guy, Castle. He might know pig Latin. Just saying. Bye."

As soon as she arrives at the Twelfth, Gates takes her to a room and introduces her to one Captain Fowler, Chief of Narcotics, who swears her to secrecy before filling her in on his case. A new, untraceable drug ring–they don't use banks, don't allow dealers to meet suppliers–has quickly taken over the uptown cocaine and heroin trade and slit the throats of half a dozen drug dealers. No one has been able to identify the killer.

A three-month investigation has yielded nothing except the undoubtedly fake name of the leader, Lazarus. Yesterday a phone intercept had led them to a low-level courier, Elena Markova, an English-speaking Russian native who'd taken the job because she needed money and the work was easy and anonymous. She'd get a text for a pickup, find the package, and take it where she was directed. That was it. Now she's scared and wants out, but she can't get out.

Fowler had written her off as useless, but this morning she'd received a text requesting a meet at 5:00 at the Wydmark Hotel. The boss wants to promote her. Finally, a break: the cops would have a face, maybe more than one. But when Fowler pressured her to accept, she'd attempted suicide and she's hospitalized.

"Long story short, Detective," he says, "we want you to go in her place. You're the only person in the department who looks somewhat like her and speaks fluent Russian. It's simple. Go to the hotel, meet your contact. Over and out."

Still, she sees what might be a flaw in this simple plan. "What if they know that you turned Elena?"

"Not possible," he says dismissively. "No one knows she's made contact with us."

Gates doesn't like it. "What if they see Detective Beckett and realize that she's not Elena?"

Fowler brushes her off, too. "They told Elena to wear a red scarf. Clearly they don't know her on sight."

She and Gates have a private conversation in the corridor. Her boss is unhappy with Fowler's tactics, and tells her best detective that she isn't obliged to take the assignment. The fact is, Beckett loves challenges. More important, she knows what it's like to be hopelessly stalled in an important investigation, so she agrees to go. It does sound straightforward.

She makes a short call to Castle. "I have a meeting, and this time I really can't tell you what it is. But it'll only be a couple of hours. Was the brownie good?"

"Sensational. Gummy and I look forward to your return. He wants to roll around on the floor with you. So do I."

"Deal. I'll be back by six."

She's mildly anxious when she steps into the lobby and adjusts her red scarf. Fowler is giving her instructions via her ear piece. Take the elevator to the eleventh floor, he says. The meet's in room 1123, he says. Undercovers have your back, he says. Stay calm, he says. Memorize names and faces of everyone you meet, he says. You'll be out in no time, he says.

What he doesn't say is that when she gets into the elevator and asks for the eleventh floor, the bellman will pull a gun on her as soon as the door is closed. What he doesn't say is that the bellman–a thug who is obviously not a bellman–will force her out on the second floor, take her to the garage, bind her hands with zip ties, and throw her into the back of a truck. She has never seen a deal go south so fast or so badly. As the truck barrels along city streets and then what feels like two-lane blacktop, she speaks into her tiny, hidden mic and describes the truck to Fowler–if the jerk is listening–and tells him what direction that she's thinks they're headed.

When the truck stops she leaves a final message and kicks away the mic. The move saves her life, at least for now. The thug opens the door, pulls a gun on her again, and checks her for a wire. When he doesn't find one, he covers her head with a hood and roughly leads her inside somewhere. She uses that brief period to try to put herself in the skin of Elena Markov, a woman she knows almost nothing about, has never met, or even seen.

Inside turns out to be an old mansion. She survives a brief interview in Russian with a man who then switches to English, introduces himself as Jones and and the thug from the truck as Harden, and apologizes for the way in which she'd been brought here. Wherever here is. Hell on earth, if she has to guess, and guessing is all she has.

And then the stunner: Jones says Lazarus admires her work and wants to put her on the permanent payroll–at 50 grand a week. Oh, something is way, way off. There's no way Markov is small-time, not with this kind of offer. In the truck she'd tried to make a mental sketch of Markov so that whoever she has to meet would find her credible. Now she has to erase it and start over, and she has almost no time to do it.

This is probably the only chance she has, so she risks it. She insists on meeting Lazarus: "It's a matter of trust." Jones agrees to pass along her request, and leaves her alone in his office. She has to think as fast as she ever has. She has to use every bit of training she's ever been given, or given herself, to work out a way to convince them that she's Elena. To get the hell out of here. Alive. The pressure to come up with something is all that keeps terror from destroying her.

How long before Jones and Harden return? Two minutes? One? She searches the desk: it's empty except for a pen, which she takes. But it also has a landline, and she quickly dials Esposito.

"Beckett! Where are you? We've got half the force looking for you."

"Trace this call," she tells him. "Get eyes on me." Whoever Markov is, "her story is a lie." She hangs up. She doesn't dare take any more than the few seconds she's used.

Don't think of Castle, she tells herself. Don't do it, don't do it. Just focus on this situation. Until recently, she never worried about her own life. If a job had gone wrong and killed her, so be it. If she'd made a bad decision and died as a result, so be it. So long as she didn't drag down anyone with her. It's why she had liked working without a partner before Castle showed up; she was part of a team, but in many ways she was on her own. But she has no playbook for this new game, and what happens if she screws it up? What happens to Castle if she dies? Does he turn into some version of the dark, vengeful, tormented person that she was for years after her mother's death? Exactly the opposite of the optimistic, exuberant man he is? He is the love of her life and she knows that she is his.

She hates everything about the set up, this operation, whatever it is, but she's suddenly filled with a new resolve. She'd been wrong: Castle is exactly the person she should let fill her mind. They're yin and yang, dark and light. That's why they've worked so well together from the start. She has to pretend that he's here with her, and together they will create a plan to liberate her from this mess.

When she's taken to another room to wait, her mood grows bleak again. The place gives her the creeps. She may not survive, and she has to find a way to say goodbye to Castle in case she doesn't. Using the pen she'd taken from Jones's desk, she writes him a short, passionate letter of love and gratitude, folds it up and hides it behind a vent. She had jabbed her finger tip with the end of a paperclip and smeared her blood on the grate. If she doesn't make it, forensics will find it and at least Castle will have her letter.

No amount of silent brainstorming could have come up with the next horrific reality. Jones reappears and says Lazarus will meet her. But first she must, in his words, "do what you do best." Kill someone. So that's it. Elena Markov is a professional killer. She must be the one who slit the throats of the drug dealers.

She's denied the name of her victim, or a reason for terminating him, just driven to his house in the pitch dark and told to do it while Harden waits outside. He hands her a gun and tells her this is a test: Lazarus wants to see how she improvises. While he's talking, while she keeps raising objections and questions to rile him up and buy herself time, she feels as if she splits in two, then returns as a gruesome hybrid. She's bad-ass Beckett fused with bad-ass Markov. She's more than cold-blooded, she's ice. She has no heart, because a heart would have blood. That's what Harden will see, anyway; that's what she'll make him see.

When she enters the house, she finds her "target"–that's what Harden calls him, as if he were a bale of hay at a carnival shooting booth–watching TV. She points the gun at his head, fires, and fires again. And again. Elena Markov doesn't miss.

Harden will want to see the body, she's sure of it. She comes back out with a deliberate swagger, and stalls him as long as she can, but he insists on the two of them going into the house. He takes a quick look at the carnage and they leave.

He should have been more thorough. Because as soon as they're back in the truck the "corpse" rises, just as she'd told him to, rinses the ketchup out of his hair, and washes the beet juice off the wall. Markov doesn't miss, but Beckett does. She misses when she wants to, and she had. Furthermore, she knows how to create a realistic-looking crime scene. Fortunately the man–Evan Potter, a corporate lawyer who is as baffled as she–has a well-stocked fridge and had immediately agreed to her hastily constructed plan. "Lie still and hold your breath when we come in. Count to a hundred after we go and then call Captain Victoria Gates at the twelfth precinct. I wrote the number on your ketchup bottle label. Tell her I'm in a compound near here. Old, expensive house. Got it?"

"Got it."

She's quiet on the ride back, her relief unvoiced, her nascent belief that she'll get away spreading through her. She's counting on Potter. A life for a life. She'd saved his, now he has to save hers. Back at the house, she's told to clean up before her meeting with Lazarus, and she as slow as she can be. A giggling, drunken young woman stumbles into the bathroom–is she someone's "date"? All she says is, "I don't know who these guys are, but they sure do like to spend money." She leaves her purse when she goes into the stall. Beckett has just enough time to dig out the woman's cell and text Espo with her badge number and a partial address before Jones tells her to come out.

Her relief lasts only as long as the moment when she comes face-to-face with Lazarus. She's led through a basement where women are counting stacks and stacks of money. There must be millions here. It's a huge counting room. There's also a large whiteboard covered with what appear to be routing numbers and sums.

"I'm impressed you've been able to hide this from the Feds," she tells her escort, trying to record every detail of the room.

He laughs. "You don't know the half of it."

She will, she promises herself. She'll know more than half. She'll know all of it. And then she tamps down a shudder when she hears screams coming from behind a door at the end of the corridor. When Jones tells her to wait she takes the opportunity to read over the shoulder of a man who is cutting checks. The payee on the one in his hand is Future Forward. She memorizes that, too.

Now she's in Lazarus's den, its floor covered in blood. She can't see him properly, but enough to know that he's a big man. He's still in the shadows when he tells her that he's made an exception to see her. "Between our needs and your skill set this could be a very profitable arrangement."

"I agree." She chokes on her words. She knows this voice. It floods her entire system. It belongs to the man who had mocked her mother in the Dick Coonan case three years ago. He's twice her size, but she'd grabbed him and smashed him up against the two-way window in interrogation. Castle, Espo, and Ryan had told her to back down. Montgomery had kicked her off the case.

Vulcan Simmons. His name is acid in her veins. Vulcan Simmons is Lazarus, risen from the metaphorical dead and almost certainly about to kill her. She's not in the safety of the precinct now. She's alone against him and the hellish forces that swirl around him and he's going to recognize her. She won't get out of this. He's out of the shadows now. He knows her.

"I never forget a face," he says. "Detective Beckett."

He has a gun. He'll shoot her here. But he doesn't. He wants information before he kills her, and she's damned if she'll die without giving him the best fight of her life. Fuck you, Simmons, she thinks. Fuck you.

And then he grips her head, shoves her her face-down in a metal tub of ice water and holds her there. She struggles wildly and eventually he yanks her head up. She's as cold as she'd been when she and Castle were trapped in the freezer. Castle's not here. She's grateful he's not here. She doesn't want him to see her like this, to see her like this at the end of her life. She's 34 and wearing his ring and never had a chance to have children with him.

Simmons thrusts her into the water over and over and over again. Each time he pulls her up and she gasps for air he asks her what her mission was and what they know about Lazarus. She doesn't give an inch.

It's hard to concentrate when she can't get oxygen into her lungs or her brain, but she wonders why he's referring to himself in the third person. Vulcan Simmons is an arrogant monster, but surely he'd demand, "What do they know about _me_?" Is it possible that he isn't Lazarus? Is he someone else's henchman? Whose?

He calls her undignified and forces her into the water again.

When he wrenches her up this time she says, "You want undignified? Wait 'til you see what I do to you."

That makes him laugh. "You're just like your mama. Both playing in worlds where you don't belong."

She lunges at him, but Harden gets her in a lock hold.

"Your mama paid for it with her life," Simmons says. "So will you. But first, tell me what I want to know."

Harden dunks her so often that she loses count. She's out of the water. Harden must have hit her head on the edge on the tub because she feels something warm on her forehead. Blood. She can just understand Simmons, still insistent, his voice burning into her.

"I can feel the panic in your soul."No you can't, you son of a bitch. No panic here. No panic.

"And I promise I will end it. Just tell me what I want to know."

No fucking way. No way in–

She can't feel anything now, can't see or hear. Is she dead or is she dreaming? If death is a void, she must be dead. Gradually she becomes aware that she's being carried, and not in the loving arms of an angel, or better yet, Castle. Whoever it is is rough, and suddenly drops her. She forces open her eyes. They're in the woods. It's dark and cold and she's wet. The man has gagged her and is shoving her along with his gun; she can only stumble, not really walk.

She's not dead or dreaming, she's conscious, more or less.

It's Harden. Something about him going hunting here when he was a kid. Finding places to hide. "Over the years it's come in handy." He trips her and she rolls down a hill, unable to stop herself. When she reaches the bottom she can't move. Even if she could, she wouldn't. She's recovered enough to refuse again. He wrenches her to her knees and takes the gag out her mouth. Claims he'd known she was a cop because he could see it in her eyes.

"I've killed cops before," he boasts. "In fact, a few of them are your new neighbors."

So this will be her grave? Not if she can reason with him. He seems like a weak link. She could sense his dislike of Jones, being ordered around. "My people will hunt you down and kill you," she says. "But help me take down Lazarus and you can set any deal you want."

He won't deal.

It's the end, then. Her fight's gone. It's over. She's waiting for the bullet to her head, but Harden turns away from her, and in an instant she sees someone slit his throat with a precise slash. After a few seconds her eyes move from the blood running from his neck to the blood dripping from the killer's knife. She gasps.

"Elena." She's lost track of how many times today she believed that she'd die, but here's one more. The final one. Except that Elena is walking away.

She's dumbfounded. "You're not going to kill me?"

"He sent me because he owed you. He said he wanted you to live."

What the hell? "Who sent you? Who wanted me to live?"

"Lazarus."

With those three syllables, she disappears.

If the torture hadn't left her so depleted, she'd run after her, but she can't even walk properly. She can't even crawl. If Lazarus is saving her, for now, she's safe here, if she doesn't die of exposure. Her limbs aren't working but her brain is. And just like that, it's on fire. Lazarus is _Bracken_. Of course. It's the only thing that makes sense. He's the dirtiest politician alive, with one of the cleanest images. He's way more than dirty, of course; he's a criminal with his hands in every kind of filth. And he'd let her go. He'd done it because she'd saved him from a car bomb thirteen months ago.

"I suppose this means I'm in your debt," he'd said afterwards.

"Nothing's changed between us," she'd replied.

"Even so," he'd pressed, right before walking out of the room at the precinct where they'd been having a brief, private conversation. "It's a dangerous world out there. You never know when you might need a friend."

The darkness takes her over. "Please," she says, trying weakly to stave off sleep. "Please, someone find me. Please."

Castle, Espo, and Ryan are driving to Scarsdale, hitting 100 in some stretches. None of them is talking. The air in the car is thick with despair. He'd first called her at 5:20, to ask if she could pick something up on the way home and had left her a voicemail. At 5:40 he'd texted. Half an hour after that he'd called again. Ten minutes after that, another text. From that movement on, every two minutes he called her, Ryan, and Espo, but none of them answered, despite numerous voicemails of mounting anxiety. By 7:30 he'd been frantic with worry and asked Alexis to come home and stay with Gummy, just in case.

He'd arrived at the precinct at 8:00 and within fifteen minutes he'd threatened Fowler. The situation had not improved. It was clear to him that all of them–Fowler, Gates, Ryan, and Espo–thought she was dead or soon would be. They'd stayed at the Twelfth all night, working on what little they had. Tiny scraps in some horrendous patchwork quilt of drugs and murder and God knows what else.

Hope had come in tiny bursts that had quickly fizzled. When Evan Potter had phoned Gates, they'd brought him in immediately, but he'd been no help. A partner in a white-shoe firm in Manhattan who worked solely in finance, especially estates and trusts. His record was clean and so was his firm's.

"Your wife was incredible," he'd told Castle as he'd left.

Was. Not is.

They'd been ecstatic when the abbreviated text from Kate had arrived, but even Tory, the brilliant, resourceful tech, couldn't trace it. He'd tried to be positive, but it had gotten increasingly difficult.

Kate had told Potter she was in a compound that had an old, fancy house. Their only clue. So they'd spent hours scouring maps of the countryside around Scarsdale and searched property tax records. Finally they found a possibility, and that's were they're headed. It's 5:30 a.m. She has been off the grid for more than half a day.

They're at the head of a convoy that includes dozens of cops, including a SWAT team, an ambulance, a hostage negotiator, and four police dogs with their handlers. He'd gone home to get some of her exercise clothes from the laundry basket. Each dog would be given time to sniff them before they got out of their SUV.

She can't be dead. She can't be dead. She can't be dead.

If she's dead he will kill Fowler with his bare and powerful hands. Let them send him to prison.

She can't be dead.

All of them park on the side of the two-lane road, 250 yards south of the compound. Everyone but the K-9 unit holds back; the plan is to give the dogs a few minutes in hopes that they will lead them to Beckett, and the rest of them will then surround the place. For now, radio silence. He excuses himself, crosses to the other side of the road, and throws up.

Five eternal minutes later, Espo's phone lights up with a text from K-9.

"Beckett alive but breathing shallow. Send doctor and gurney in ASAP. Body of male, about six feet, 30s, throat slit, nearby. No weapon in immediate vicinity."

He doesn't care what the protocol is, he's going with the doctor. While the EMTs are lifting her on to the gurney, he sees the dead man nearby. Whoever he is, he's almost certainly not a friend. If he's part of all this, Castle will find his grave in a few days and spit on it.

He holds her hand while she's on the gurney; "Gently, Castle, don't rub her hand," one of the EMTs says kindly. He holds it in the ambulance while the EMTs cut off her wet clothes, which are frozen in spots. Holds it while she's covered in blankets. Holds it while they dress the wound on her forehead.

"Castle?"

"That's me," he says, thrilled that's she speaking, trying not to cry, but figuring if a tear lands on her it might warm up.

" 'm I in an ambulance?"

"Yes. We're going to the hospital."

"No. Home."

"They have to take you there, sweetheart, to check you out. I promise you the instant you can leave I'll get you home. Hire twenty-four nurses if that's what you need."

The ambulance speeds away, no lights, no siren. Not until they're clear of the place. Teams have moved in. Castle wonders if there's anyone in the house, or if they've taken off.

A few hours laters Gates and the boys join them in the hospital, with the disappointing but unsurprising news that the raid on the house had netted nothing. The place was empty. "The mansion is held in trust by an offshore corporation," the Captain says. "It'll be months before we find out who the real owners are."

Fowler's team had picked up Vulcan Simmons in Washington Heights. He, of course, had a solid–as in bought and handsomely paid for–alibi.

"So we have nothing?" Castle asks, sitting next to Beckett on her bed. He feels a tug on his sleeve.

"Not nothing," she says. She's still weak, but not too weak to write "Future Forward" on a pad and show it to them. "Part of the money laundering. Whatever it is, a lot of cash is being funneled into it."

With that precious bit of information, her colleagues leave for the precinct, and she and her husband are alone.

She looks up at him. "Castle?" Her voice is soft and tentative.

"Yes?" His is soft, too, but not at all tentative.

"Are you mad at me?"

"Why on earth would I be?"

"Because I took the assignment when I could have said no."

He swallows and waits a moment before answers. "While you were–. While you were away, gone, there, I talked to Gates and Fowler. For hours. I know exactly what kind of crap he sold you. He blindsided you. I'm going to be furious at him forever, but not at you. I married a cop, and I did it with my eyes open. You didn't know you were doing something dangerous."

"Thank you." She squeezes his hand.

"Were you worried about that?"

"I was worried about dying and leaving you alone and your turning into what I used to be, before you. Driven and sad and angry and eaten up. I couldn't bear the idea that that could happen to you." That's what breaks the dam. She hadn't let herself cry, and now she does, and so does he. They cry in each other's arms until they're cried out. And then, with a little sweet-talking from Castle, the doctor lets Beckett go home.

Ryan calls to tell them that they'd traced Future Forward. A political super PAC that got $160 million in drug money, which was then legally laundered and is impossible to trace. Evan Potter had set up Future Forward for a client, but didn't run it. He had no knowledge of the drug connection. His part, perfectly above board, had been over ages ago. And the client? Mysteriously died of a heart attack earlier today.

"That's why you can't find the money," Beckett says to Ryan. "Someone's using it to build a massive political war chest."

After the call, when they're drinking hot chocolate–she's off caffeine for the rest of the day–Castle says, "Well, at least there's this. Now that we know that Simmons is Lazarus, he'll be watched twenty-four seven. He won't be able to rebuild."

"He's not Lazarus."

"What?"

"If he were, I'd be dead. Simmons is just a figurehead. Someone much bigger, much higher up, much more powerful is Lazarus. Someone who wanted me alive."

His eyes are round as he turns to her. "Who?"

"Bracken." She points to the TV, where the Senator is smiling at the camera. The sound is off. "The man who's just said he's going to run for President. Interesting timing."

She turns off the television, and in the next half hour tells him what had happened to her, sparing very few details, right through to her realization of who Lazarus is. She recounts it unemotionally, and initially he thinks she's doing it to spare him. But as she gets closer to the end, he understands that it's not just that. She has to put this all at a remove, as if it had happened to someone else, someone she doesn't know but might have read about in a book. And that frightens him almost as much as the event itself, her detachment. Not from him–because she says again and again how much she loves him, how that and his love for her had helped keep her going–but from herself.

"Let's go to bed," he says, his hand caressing her cheek.

"Okay," she says, giving him a faint smile.

In bed she curls against him as closely as she ever has, and they fall asleep.

Something wakes him, and he squints at his phone. It's 2:45 in the morning. She's not in bed, and she's not in their room. He gets out of bed and checks the bathroom; she's not there either. His heart is pounding as he runs through the living room and sees her standing in the kitchen. That's what had woken him, the sound of her there, and the lights. She'd turned on all the lights. Gummy is sitting next to her foot, looking up at her.

Her arms are wrapped tightly around her torso. "Where are the brownies?"

"The brownies?"

"I made them for AA. You took them out of the oven for me. Where are they? I missed my AA meeting tonight. I missed it. I was taking brownies. I have to make some more."

"I put them in the freezer. They're safe. They're fine. You can take them next time."

"No, I need to make more. They have to be fresh. Not those. Those aren't good." She yanks the refrigerator door open and takes out butter and eggs. He steps right next to her and puts his hand over hers, the one holding the egg carton. "It's so late, Kate," he says. "Why don't we do this in the morning?"

"Don't you see, Castle?" Her eyes are full. "I missed my meeting. I never miss my meeting. Bracken made me miss my meeting."

TBC

 **A/N** I often wondered how Beckett was found in "Belly in the Beast," since it never came up. So I decided how I'd have done it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** The only part of Castle that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

She seems both frantic and fragile, like a bird trapped in a room and flying repeatedly into a window. Despite all that they've been through together, he doesn't know how to this.

The horrors that she'd endured a few hours ago have affected her in ways that he can hardly bear to imagine. She'd been calm in the hospital: should he have worried then? He'd been so grateful that she'd made it out alive that he hadn't stopped to consider what her composure might have been masking, and what it cost her. He'd been worried a few hours ago, when she was so detached while telling him about her kidnapping and torture, but he hadn't realized the depth and breadth of her trauma until now. It's Bracken who has pushed her to the edge, it's Bracken who's to blame.

What she'd talked about earlier tonight were his large-scale crimes, but what is tearing her apart now is the smaller but deeply personal one: she'd missed her AA meeting because of Bracken. That is what she's latched onto, the simple and painfully complex crux of the issue. It must have crept or stormed into her dreams, must have woken her up and sent her to the kitchen. She is fixated on the brownies, and he realizes that he shouldn't have tried to stop her. A new batch of brownies represents, what? He's no expert, but he's guessing it stands for a fresh start. The other batch, though perfectly fine to him, is tainted in her mind. If baking brownies at 3 a.m. will help her cope, he's all for it.

He lifts his hand away from hers, no longer trying to prevent her from opening the egg carton. "Would you like some help? Making the brownies?" He wants her to understand that he's taking her seriously, but he also wants to lighten the pitch-black mood a little, if he can. He points to the dog, who's nestled against her foot. "Gummy is offering to be your sous-chef, but I'm more reliable."

Her hip is jammed against the counter and she's trembling. What he really wants to do is to embrace her, to make a cocoon of a blanket and sit inside it with her for as long as she needs. But he senses that that's the wrong thing to do right now. Should try to steer her away from brownies?

"Or do you want to bake something different?" he asks. "Like your staggeringly good peanut-butter cookies?"

Even though they're not touching, he feels her go rigid. "It has to be brownies. It can only be brownies."

Of course. Of course. It's a do-over. She wants to right the wrongs that had happened since she left the loft 40 hours ago, when her brownies were in the oven. Brownies were the last good thing before hell descended on her.

"I'll turn the oven to three-fifty, right? Shall I butter a pan while you make the batter?"

"Okay, yes. Okay."

"How about if I chop up some pecans for them?"

She shakes her head vigorously. "No. No nuts. They weren't in the other brownies. Somebody in the group is allergic."

"Good to know."

He fetches the utensils she needs–measuring cups and spoons, the flour sifter, a whisk–sets them on the counter, and then watches her work. He'd say she's on auto-pilot, except that would imply a certain lack of emotion, which is not the case. She knows this recipe by heart, but she's as nervous and intense as if she were auditioning for a job at a three-star restaurant. The nerves, of course, have nothing to do with the brownies.

The batter is ready; he holds the pan while she pours it in, and sets the timer for 25 minutes. "Do you want to talk while they're in the oven?" he asks gently.

She shakes her head again, but this time looks away rather than at him.

"I'm going to have some tea." He hoists the kettle, hoping that she'll see it. "I'll put in extra water in case you'd like to join me." He feels worse than useless: clumsy and at a loss not just for words but for actions. He doesn't really want tea; that had been a space filler. He turns the kettle off before it's even simmering and takes a few steps forward until he can wrap his arms around her.

Through the thin fabric of her jersey he can feel all her vertebrae, the outline of every rib, the knobs of her shoulders, the hard edges of her clavicle. He knows that that's not actually the case, but this ordeal seems to have left her skeletal, as if she suddenly has nothing to protect herself from anyone or anything. He doesn't know how long they stand like this, but it must be several minutes because the timer just went off.

"I'll get them," he says, not sure if she'll let him, but she does. Reluctantly he release her, pulls on an oven mitt, then places the hot pan on a cooling rack. "Let's go back to bed. They can sit here for a few hours."

He takes her by the hand and they walk silently back to their room. For the first time in his life he has no interest in having a brownie.

His sleep is fitful, and he wakes several times. She, on the other hand, is out cold, and he's thankful for that. Shortly before six he gets up and very quietly gathers jeans, a shirt, heavy socks, and a sweater from the walk-in closet and tiptoes the kitchen to get dressed. He slices the brownies, puts them on a plate, and covers them. Then he takes the other batch from the freezer, defrosts them in the microwave, and packs them in a container. Afraid that the smell of coffee might wake her, though it's not yet dawn, he doesn't make any.

"C'mon, Gummy," he whispers to the dog, who looks eagerly at him and thumps his tail on the floor. "We're going out. As soon as I go to the guest bath and brush my teeth."

A few minutes later, he and the dog, both bundled up, step out of the elevator. "Good morning, Eli," he says to the night-shift doorman who will be going off duty soon. "Thought you might enjoy these."

"Good morning, Mister Castle," he says, accepting the blue-topped plastic box with a grin. "Are they what I think they are?"

"If you're thinking brownies, yes. Gummy and I are going out for a while. If you've left by the time we get back, sweet dreams."

"Definitely sweet, thanks to you," Eli says, opening the door onto a snow-cleared sidewalk. "Have a good day."

A good day? Probably not. Better than yesterday? He can hope. "Thank you," he says. It takes several minutes to go two blocks, what with Gummy stopping frequently to check the pee-mail and leave some of his own, but eventually they get to the coffee place. He checks his watch, sees that it's 6:20 and nods to himself. Gates should be arriving at the precinct about now. He orders two cups to go, and a blueberry scone, glad that he's an observant man and knows the Captain's tastes.

Outside again, he hails a cab and puts Gummy on his lap. Almost immediately the dogs stands on his short hind legs and looks out the window, marking it in a few places with his wet nose. Gotta give the driver a bigger tip than usual, Castle thinks, although he wipes the window with his handkerchief when the cab pulls up to the precinct.

He's relieved to find that the bullpen is empty, but that Gates is in her office.

"Good morning, Sir," he says, tapping on the doorframe.

"Mister Castle?" She's obviously taken aback, looking at him over the tops of her glasses before removing them. "I didn't expect to see you today, certainly not at this hour. I gave Detective Beckett the day off. Is everything all right?"

"Kate had a really rough night and she's finally sleeping now. I apologize for bringing the dog, but I didn't want him bouncing around and waking her up."

"It's fine. He's a cutie. What can I do for you?"

"I, uh, brought you a cappuccino," he says, placing the bag on the corner of her desk. "And a scone. Hope that's all right. I wondered if I could talk with you for a minute"–he cranes his neck to peer out her interior window–"before everyone got here."

"What's on your mind?" She takes a sip of coffee and peeks in the bag at her scone. "Mmm, thank you. And please, sit down."

"You're welcome," he says, dropping into a hard chair opposite her. "I realize that I'm violating protocol by doing this. If Kate knew I were here she'd tear me a–. I mean, she'd have a fit." He notices the Captain stifling a smile. "I wonder if you'd consider giving her a little more time off. Maybe one more day? Last night she gave me chapter and verse on what Simmons did to her. It was all I could do not to get in my car, track him down, and choke him to death."

"Understandable, though I'm glad that you didn't." She straightens out some files that are already in perfect alignment, and clears her throat. "I got some information from the EMTs and the doctor who treated Detective Beckett, and she did, of course, inform Captain Fowler and me of what she went through, but I'm sure that she left out quite a few of the details."

"I guarantee it." He clamps his jaw at the memory of it. "And speaking of Captain Fowler."

She puts up her perfectly-manicured hand. "To take a cue from you, Mister Castle, I tore him–" she stops to give him a trace of a smile. "I told him off. In the harshest terms. He endangered the life of my best detective, and he did it in a way that I consider reckless, uninformed, and worse. It will be the coldest day in the history of hell before I'll help him again, unless I'm under direct orders from someone many steps above my pay grade."

He's longing to tell her about Bracken, but it would have to be a far colder day than the one she evoked before he could do that. At least he has bought Kate a little time to heal, an extra 24 hours to regain her equilibrium, or as much as she can in the circumstances. "I'm happy to hear it." He gets to his feet. "I think that Gummy and I had better leave, before anyone sees us. Thank you for your help. And your time."

"You both deserve it. I'll phone Detective Beckett later and suggest that she not come in tomorrow, either. In fact, I'll order her not to."

"You know her well," he says.

"Not as well as you, but yes. I hope so. I'd ask you to give her my best, but since you're not here, that's impossible."

"Right," he says, nodding. "Thanks again."

With Gummy secure in his arms, he trots to the back stairs and makes his way down to the rear of the building. Because of the hour or the weather–it's snowing in earnest now–he sees no one he knows out back. He also sees no cabs, so he walks to the subway. A train is just pulling in, and he and the pooch are home in minutes.

The smell of coffee hits him before he has their front door completely open, and reminds him that he'd forgotten to drink his, had left it on Gates's desk. Dammit, this means she's up. He undoes the dog's coat and harness and lets him go; he skitters across the floor and throws himself at Kate.

"Gums!" he hears her say as he hangs up his own damp parka. "Did you have fun in the snow, mister?"

"Hi," he says, wreathed, he hopes, in innocence. "I was hoping you'd sleep longer."

"Snow plow woke me up a few minutes ago." She takes a step forward and kisses him. "Your face is cold."

"Coffee will make that all better," he says lightly. "Assuming you didn't make just one cup."

She pours him a mug. "Here. Um, Castle? About last night. I know I was crazed."

"You had every right to be."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't. You have no reason to apologize."

"Thank you. And thanks," she makes a half turn and waves at the covered plate on the counter, "for taking care of the brownies."

"I'm always happy to take care of your brownies." He brushes her lips with his. "Mm, you taste of coffee."

"I have to go to a meeting, Castle."

"Okay."

"Now."

"Okay, good."

"To make up for yesterday."

"I understand." She may be calmer and more coherent than she was a few hours ago, but she's still ragged and splintered, which means he has to be as even-keeled as he ever has been. "Is there a meeting near here this morning? It's awful out."

"Yes, yes. I looked. At eight. Well not near-near, but on Sullivan. Only ten blocks. I don't have time to take a shower. Is that all right? I can just go, right? I mean I'll brush my teeth and get dressed."

She's speaking so rapidly and looks so worried that it makes his heart contract, as if it had been plunged into cold water. Jesus. Plunged into cold water. Kate. He takes a few deep breaths and hopes that she doesn't notice. "Would you like me to go with you? I could have coffee and read the paper somewhere until you're through."

"No. You stay. I have to go."

"Okay." Keep it normal, keep it normal. The trouble is, there's nothing normal about this. "Gummy and I will have breakfast ready when you get back."

"I have to go."

"I know." He stands in the middle of the kitchen and watches her run to their room to get dressed. He stands there and isn't even aware that he's holding is mug so awkwardly that the coffee is dripping on to the floor.

She comes back in jeans and a turtleneck, her hair in a pony tail. No makeup. She looks about 18. An 18-year-old who was kidnapped and tortured and is going to an AA meeting. To hell with Simmons, he wants to kill Bracken.

"Castle?"

He jumps. Even though she's right in front of him, he jumps, and this time he sees the coffee splash. "Oh. Sorry, spilled." He grabs a sponge and wipes the floor.

"I changed my mind."

"You're not going? That's fine. You can–"

"No, I changed my mind about you coming. Would you come with me?"

"Of course I will."

It's snowing heavily now, and sometimes horizontally, which slows their pace, but they get to Sullivan a few minutes ahead of time. She goes into her meeting and he gets a window seat in a diner that's almost opposite the building. He orders coffee and a corn muffin but doesn't touch them; he just sits and watches the door that she'd gone through, waiting for her to come out. Eventually the waitress stops at his table and asks if everything's all right he's so embarrassed that he eats the muffin in three bites.

At 8:50 he can't stand sitting there any longer, pays his bill, and crosses the street to wait for her there. He has to stamp his feet at regular intervals to stay warm, but at 9:00 she emerges and he grabs her hand. "Hi. You okay?"

"Yes."

"Did everyone like your brownies? This isn't your regular place, so they must have swooned."

"Yeah, they kind of did." He's rewarded with a smile. "Though this one X-ray type in zillion-dollar clothes who probably lives on five hundred calories a day complained. She said, 'I don't know why we have to have this sugar-loaded crap here, especially this early'."

"Oh, my God, that's criminal. Did you arrest her?"

"I thought about it. Instead I took the last one, wrapped it in a napkin, and shoved it in my purse. Told her, 'I eat sweets all day. And chips! Don't get me started! I have such a high metabolic rate that it's hard to keep weight on.' That shut her up."

"Ah, Beckett, I didn't know there were even more reasons to love you, but I was wrong." He's so happy that her spirits have improved that were it not treacherous underfoot he'd have skipped all the way home.

While he's making breakfast her phone rings.

"Beckett." Brief pause. "Good morning, Sir." Another pause. "Much better, thank you." Longer pause. "No, I'm sure I'll be fine to come in tomorrow." Significantly longer pause. "Yes. All right." Shorter pause. "Thank you. You, too. I'll see you day after tomorrow. Bye."

"Gates?" he asks, as if he didn't know.

"Yeah."

"What's up?"

"Told me to take tomorrow off."

"That's nice of her. Good idea, right?"

She puts her phone down and shoves her hair back with both her hands. "I guess." She raises her head and looks straight at him. "I hate Bracken. I hate that motherfucker."

He's surprised. She can swear like a sailor, but he's never heard he say that.

"He took everything. I don't mean just my mother, but everything else. Everything was perfect the last few months. And then he took everything and ruined it."

He moves the pan off the heat and turns off the stove. "He didn't ruin us, Kate. He couldn't do that."

"You know what I was thinking when I was in that basement, Castle? What if it had happened a year from now, or two years? What if I'd had a baby and I'd died? You'd be left on your own with a motherless child. You are the best father in the world, but you shouldn't have to do that. It was hard enough for you with Alexis, but this? A murdered wife and mother?"

She leaves the question in the air and he takes her in his arms. "We'll figure this out, Kate. We will figure this out together. I promise you."

 **A/N** Many thanks to all you readers, reviewers, followers, and favoriters. I so appreciate your encouragement and your coming back for this short (!) sequel.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

She's going back to work this morning, and woke more than half an hour before her alarm was set to go off. Castle is sound asleep on his side, and she's lying in bed looking at him. In the last two days he talked her off the ledge so many times. She has thanked him twice as many, maybe three, but it will never be enough. She's still astonished by what a calming influence he can be. The voice of reason, even. If someone had told her that a couple of years ago, she'd have hooted.

Through these two days and nights they've talked and talked and talked about Simmons and Bracken. They've talked about other things, too, but what meant and means the most is how he'd brought her around on the subject of kids. His last plea was what had really done it, right before they'd gone to sleep, and she goes over it again, recalling how he'd phrased it: "If you die before me," he'd said softly, "which I can't believe I'm even saying." He'd stopped. Even in the low light she'd been able to see his Adam's apple move as he'd swallowed hard. "If you die before I do, Kate, don't you know how much it would help me to cope with that loss, with that crippling grief, if we had a child, or children? That I would have this living, breathing, talking, laughing, crying, singing, jumping, smart-as-a-whip, magnificent part of you to love and raise? And what if I die before you? Would you rather be on your own, or would you rather be loving and raising that living, breathing, magnificent creature whom we created together?"

She'd looked into those blue, blue eyes of his–which had looked even bluer than usual because of the periwinkle duvet on the bed–for a long time. He'd waited for her to say something, looking alternately terrified and hopeful. She didn't want him to be terrified. His argument was simple and in many ways obvious, but it was also lovingly persuasive and perfect. "You're right, Castle," she'd said at last, caressing his cheek with the backs of her fingers. "I want the living, breathing, magnificent creature that's part of you."

"And you."

"And me. But not this instant."

He'd nudged her with his knee and chuckled. "That's good, because I'm way too tired to create anything right this instant."

She slips out of bed now, goes into the bathroom, and shuts the door. Consciously and unconsciously she avoids looking at the tub. She'd tried to soak in it last night, but the whole notion of a tub, even one that bears no resemblance to the one that Simmons had repeatedly shoved her head into, had made her queasy. She has time for a bath this morning, but she chooses the shower. The tub can wait. She'll make her way back to the tub some day.

She puts on her makeup and gets dressed in the bathroom so as not to wake him. This whole thing has taken just as much out of him as it has her, and it probably cost him more emotionally than it has her. She decides to takes the cheerful, wiggly Gummy for a turn around the block. Castle is staying home today and will give him a good run later in the park. Blocks of snow and ice are everywhere, and not likely to melt soon. When they get home she puts the dog's kibble in his bowl and creeps to the bedroom to check on Castle. He's turned over onto his stomach now, with his hand spread out on her pillow as if he were stroking her hair, but he's still asleep. She blows him a kiss, and before leaving home puts a hot pink Post-it note on the coffeemaker. "If Gummy tells you he hasn't had breakfast, he's fibbing. xoxo"

Even though she stops to get a take-out coffee, she's 15 minutes early to work, and not surprised that the boys aren't here yet. She's equally unsurprised that Gates is, so after stowing her bag in her desk drawer she heads for the captain's office. "Good morning, Sir."

"Good morning," her boss says, with a genuine smile. "It's nice to have you back."

"Thank you. I, uh, wanted to thank you for the extra time off. I didn't think I needed it, but I did."

"You went through quite an ordeal, Detective Beckett. I wish that I could have persuaded you not to go."

"It was my choice." Not to mention–and she doesn't–that, despite everything, she now has a line on Bracken.

"Yes, well, I'm still sorry. I'm glad that you're here ahead of the others. I have something for you." She opens a folder and removes an envelope which she holds between her thumb and index finger. "Forensics found this in their sweep of the house. It's addressed to Mister Castle, but it's your handwriting. I'm pretty sure I know what it is, and I thought that you might want it." She passes it to her. "No one has to know about this."

She closes her eyes for a moment, the memory of writing the letter flickering against her lids like an old movie running through a projector. "Thank you," she says, feeling shaky enough that she puts a hand on the corner of the desk to steady herself as she gets up. "I appreciate that. I'd better get to work."

"You're welcome," the captain says, then bows her head over the papers in front of her.

As soon as she's at her desk she shuts the envelope in a zippered pocket inside her purse. She thinks of it throughout the day; it feels as if it's radioactive, as if it might break the needle on a Geiger counter.

Castle sends her a text at least once hour. The first is, "Did you have breakfast?"

"It's Baker's birthday," she types in return. "There are doughnuts. DD glazed, number one on your personal hit parade."

Later on it's, "Want a snack?"

"No, thanks, I'm fine."

At noon he asks, "Should I bring you some lunch?"

"I'm sort of sharing a pizza with the boys."

Next he sends a video of Gummy dragging her bra out of the laundry basket and trotting around the loft with it in his mouth. "The dog has excellent taste," Castle writes. "Notice that he chose the purple lacy one."

Then, "It started to snow again. How about I show up with a Thermos of tea? I mean the good stuff, made with loose leaves, not those bags."

To which she answers, "It's okay, thanks. I'll be home soon."

Twenty minutes later it's, "What would you like for dinner?"

"Anything you'd like to make," she writes. "Or order. Have you noticed how food-centric your texts are? BTW, you better not have let Gummy chew up my bra. It's almost brand-new."

"Don't worry. I swapped him a biscuit for your bra."

She understands that he's trying to divert her, trying not to be over-protective, and it's sweet. It even works, some of the time. Half an hour before the end of shift her he's back again. "The weather sucks. May I pick you up and drive you home?"

She's said no to his other offers, and she's happy to accept this one, happy knowing that it will make him happy, too. "YES! Thank you. I'll be downstairs at 4:01."

"You're so precise, Beckett. Very sexy."

"You're lucky no one's reading over my shoulder, Castle."

At 3:59 she says good night to Espo and Ryan, and walks down the stairs as a tiny nod to exercise. She's fidgety and cooped-up and the letter is burning through the leather of her bag and the wool of her coat. At 4:01–precisely, she thinks–she pushes open the front door of the precinct and there's Castle, standing next to the car, which is parked at the curb.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"How was your day?" he asks, as he drives to Broome Street far more cautiously than usual, the road slick with ice.

"No one got murdered, at least not in our neighborhood. So I guess that makes it a good day."

"I guess it does," he says, hooking her little finger with his. "Did you really eat one of Baker's birthday doughnuts?"

"A bite."

"How about the pizza?"

"A slice, I had a slice."

"Uh, huh. Well, good thing I'm making your absolutely favorite dinner."

There's something in that almost offhand gesture, that reflection of his generosity and kindness, that makes her want to weep. She doesn't say anything, can't really, and after a minute he takes a quick sidelong glance at her. "Are you all right, Kate?"

"Yeah." She tilts to her left, as much as she can in the confines of her seatbelt, and leans her head against his shoulder. "Know what my absolutely favorite part of my absolutely favorite dinner is?"

"Sauteed chanterelles?"

"No. The guy who's cooking them."

"I'd kiss you right now, but I'm afraid of crashing the car."

"When we get home, then."

"Yes. When we get home."

Except when they get home, she kisses him before he can kiss her, right up against the wall.

"Wow," he says afterwards. "That was incredible. You kissed me as if your life depended on it."

"It did. My life does depends on you, Castle. You've been my lifeline for a long time, especially since Berryville. And the last few days, my God. Everything you do for me, Castle. It's unquantifiable. Could we sit down for a minute, please? I have something I want to show you."

It's seldom that he's speechless, but her little speech, outburst, whatever it was, has made him so. She takes his hand and walks him to the sofa with her. After getting the letter from her bag, she pulls her legs up under her so that she can sit at a right angle to him, with her knees grazing his thighs.

"When I was in that room, alone, the other night–. When I was waiting to meet Simmons, though I didn't know that's who it was, I was afraid I wouldn't get out of there alive. Not certain of it, but I figured there was at least a fifty-fifty chance that I'd die. I wanted to be able to say goodbye to you, and the only way I could was to write a letter. I knew that I had very little time, so it had to be short. As soon as I'd done it, I hid it behind a vent. I pricked my finger and smeared a few drops of blood on the vent, to ensure that someone from CSU would look there." She stops to gather both her breath and her senses.

"I got out, but CSU did search later. They found the letter and Gates got them to give it to her. She returned it to me today. Recognized my handwriting. So here it is." She thrusts it at him, but he draws back.

"Don't you want it, Castle?"

"No."

"Why? It's for you. I wrote it to you. It's yours."

"Why don't I? Because I don't think I can bear knowing what was going through your mind then."

"But I'm alive, Castle. I'm here. We're here. Please? I have a hard time knowing how to thank you for everything, and I thought that this was my last shot at it. Please."

Reluctantly, he takes the envelope, pulls the flap up, and removes the letter. But before he can unfold it, he gives it back to her. "I can't," he says, his voice cracking. "You'll have to read it to me."

She'd never foreseen this reaction, this emotional collapse. She'd hoped that it would help him to know that his love for her had kept her strong all the way to the end. That was what she'd wanted. She'll read it aloud to him, then.

"Dear Castle,

"Thank you for your overwhelming and limitless love. You saw me at my worst and gave me your best. You forgave. You opened my heart and my mind and my eyes to possibilities that I either never knew existed or that I'd turned away from years ago. You made me laugh. You taught me the value of silliness. You got me to talk. We could talk about anything, couldn't we? And we had so much fun. You helped me find my way out of the dark. You gave me joy. You gave me the most fragile thing there is, hope, and made it seem indestructible.

"I love you. If I die tonight, my last thought will be of you, my last breath will be for you. Don't grieve for me too long. You brought happiness back to me. Let your last gift to me be that you will be happy again. My heart will be full of you forever. Kate"

She knows that he's crying even before she looks up and sees his face. He rubs his hands hard against his eyes, then leans over and very gently takes the letter from her hand, folds it up, puts it back in the envelope, and leaves the room.

He's been gone for a long time, and she begins to fret. Should she go after him, or let him be? Castle can be deeply introspective–something that very few people realize–but he rarely wants to be alone unless he's writing. Even then, he's glad if she comes into his office and reads while he works. "See, Beckett?" he'd said one recent, rainy Sunday, when he triumphantly finished a chapter. "Even as a mute muse, you are my inspiration."

She goes after him.

The closet door in the office is wide open. The safe is in there, and he's standing over it, head down, his hand resting on top.

"Castle?" When he doesn't move or answer, she closes the gap between them and lightly presses her palm between his shoulder blades. It's one of the places on his body that she most loves. "Is something wrong?"

"I put it–." He clears his throat. "I put your letter in the safe. For safekeeping. It's in the safe."

"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I didn't think that this would upset you."

He turns around so fast that her hand flies off his back, and he's hugging her so hard that it hurts. She doesn't care. Eventually she coughs because she can't get enough air to breathe properly, and he loosens his grip.

"It's not the letter," he says, his breath warm against her scalp. "It's knowing that you thought that you were at the end. It's knowing that what you decided to do with the last minutes of your life was to write me a letter. It's thinking that you might believe that I'm not aware of how much you love me. Every part of me is aware of that, every minute. But when you wrote it down, it–. I am overwhelmed by your love, Kate."

It takes a few moments for her to be certain that she can speak. "So you're going to keep the letter in the safe?"

"Yes. And we will be safe. We will get Bracken, but we will be safe. And every day we will come home together, and I will know that the only love letter that I care about is waiting here, safe at home."

 **A/N** Thank you for reading; thank you double for leaving reviews that spur me on. I will be on the road from Friday through Tuesday, and probably won't be able to update until a week from today.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** The only part of Castle that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** You will recognize some lines of dialogue from "Veritas," but there are a number of significant changes from canon. The most important is that Beckett does not go alone to confront Simmons. Also, there is a brief M-rated section in this chapter. Stop at "She's never undressed him this quickly" and begin again at "I'm almost out of my mind" if you want to avoid it.

Winter had given way to spring, inch by inch, day by day. They'd caught the usual assortment of cases, and a few weeks ago one had made Castle absolutely giddy. The skeletal remains–plus pinky ring, fancy watch, and scraps of a blue suit–of a Mafia don who disappeared 36 years earlier were uncovered on the site of a building that was being torn down.

On their way back to the precinct, her highly enthusiastic husband had almost bounced out of the car. "Wow, Beckett, I can't believe it. We found Vince Bianchi. And is that the perfect name for a big-time mobster, or what? Bianchi? White?"

"Bianchi means whites, plural," she'd said, turning onto West Broadway.

"Okay, what's an s, or in this case an i, between friends? Or between spouses? It's still great, white as in pure. Vince was probably a juvenile delinquent while he was still in diapers."

"Really, Castle? What crime would he commit while still in diapers?"

"Wait 'til we have kids and you start changing diapers; you won't have to ask that question. But I was thinking more like stealing other kids' toys, making them eat sand in the sandbox, smacking them upside the head."

"None of which you ever did."

"It's true. I was a total chicken at that age."

She loves moments like these, always has, but especially now. It's May, and for the last six weeks she and Castle have been surveilling two people–secretly and in their spare time–in hopes of bringing down Bracken. One is Vulcan Simmons, and their pursuit of him is extremely cautious; the other is Jason Marks, a young man who runs a so-called political consulting firm in Washington but in fact works for Bracken and could be an important player. She and Castle go out at night and on weekends at odd hours; they use rented cars and vans, sometimes from Rent-a-Wreck, which boosts the possibility of their remaining anonymous. They record everything the old-fashioned way, by hand, in notebooks, which they keep in the bedroom safe, and download the photos they take onto a secure site. They refer to it simply as "our project," as if they were about to remodel the kitchen or plant a garden on the roof.

They'd had a terrifyingly close call ten days ago, during a chilly spring downpour at two in the morning. Before leaving the loft she'd scrubbed her face of all traces of makeup, tucked her hair up inside a man's hat, and put on a shapeless rain jacket and plain black leather gloves. She had no idea why she'd taken that precaution, since she never had before.

She'd parked too close to Simmons, an unforgivable rookie mistake. He'd been inside some grim-looking old building for a long time, and when he'd re-emerged he'd surprised them by using a different door than the one he'd gone through more than an hour before. The smeared windshield had saved them from being immediately recognized; what she'd done next had saved them, period. With a microsecond to spare, she'd grabbed Castle and given him a kiss that reminded her of their legendary ruse three years ago, outside a warehouse. This time she'd pounced on him and had her tongue down his throat before he could move a muscle. Sensing Simmons advancing on them, she managed to mutter, "Go with this, Castle," as she shoved her hand down the front of his jeans. Simmons pounded his fist on the roof of the Craig's List beater that Castle had bought for $1,500, cash, the previous week. "Enjoying yourselves, faggots?" Simmons had said before laughing, taking the last few steps to his own car, and roaring away.

She'd still been trembling when they'd pulled out of the alley and headed home. "Smart move, Kate," Castle had said. "So, Simmons is a homophobe, too. As if we needed another reason to despise him."

The next morning she'd still been jumpy. Castle had smiled and complimented her on the way she'd dressed the night before. "You obviously knew what was going to happen," he'd said.

"Not a chance. Dumb luck."

"Well, I'd attribute it to your Spidey senses, but I'm the one who has those. You're Wonder Woman." Those two dopey sentences and his bear hug had eased her panic, but not her wariness.

Panic had come screaming back this morning. Castle was at a book conference in Chicago, and last night she'd gone out on her own to trail Jason Marks. They have almost nothing on him, but they're convinced that he's a smallish fish who can lead them to the very big one. She'd come up all but empty this time, too, recording nothing more than him getting out of a taxi in an alley in the East Village, then into a town car, and being driven away. But she'd dutifully photographed vehicles and license plates, made note of the time, and gone home to bed.

Early this morning as she'd been wearily looking through last night's photos, Castle had called to say that he was coming today instead of tomorrow; they hadn't chatted for long because Ryan had phoned about a body drop.

She'd met her team in an alley; a street sweeper had found the vic an hour earlier. Unlike Ryan, Espo, and Lanie, she hadn't needed to check the ID in the dead man's wallet to know that it belonged to Jason Marks, whom she had seen alive and presumably well only hours before. She'd tried to mask both her shock and her nausea, but hadn't been entirely successful: Ryan had asked if she was okay.

Marks had been shot twice in the chest, at close range. Lanie had estimated the TOD as between midnight and two a.m. Beckett knows, but hadn't said, that it had been no earlier than 1:15, which was when she'd observed Marks getting into the car. The absence of blood had also indicated that he had been murdered elsewhere and dumped here. She'd almost tipped her hand by urging Espo to take a larger-than-usual radius for traffic cam footage. Just a hunch she'd said, though it was anything but.

They're at the precinct now, and learn that her so-called hunch had paid off, though not as she'd expected: video footage shows Marks in the passenger seat of a town car, but the shocker is who's behind the wheel. Vulcan Simmons. The video yields nothing else, because there are no cameras south of there.

"What's a drug lord doing mixed up with a DC political operative, anyway?" Ryan asks.

She doesn't answer, and is both relieved and ecstatic to see Castle emerge from the precinct elevator; he'd come straight from the airport without stopping at home to drop off his suitcase. After he's said hello to the boys, they go to a back hallway to talk, and he poses the right question: if Marks was the liaison between Simmons's drug business and Bracken's campaign, why kill him?

Though she's as baffled as he is, she also senses that something has changed significantly. "Maybe Bracken is erasing all the dots that connect to him. We have to move before this dots disappear." She wants to go after him, metaphorical guns blazing, but Castle pulls her back. And then the eternal optimist whom she adores comes up with this: with Simmons now a prime suspect in the case, maybe they can pressure him to rat out the Senator.

Her excitement over Castle's theory evaporates in seconds: Gates summons her to her office and not only takes her off the case but banishes her from the precinct for the rest of the day, lest Simmons see her when he's brought in. "Nobody has a history with him like you do," the Captain says. "His lawyers will spin it as a personal vendetta."

As soon as they're home she shows Castle the photos from last night, and points at the car. "We have to find it. If Simmons killed Marks in it, which he must have, there will be evidence. We have to find the car. We have to. And then he'll have to cut a deal."

He puts his hand over hers. "The boys are all over this," he says gently. "You know that, right?"

Before she can respond, her phone rings. It's Ryan, with the devastating news that they had to release Simmons. "His lawyers claim it's not him in the photo, Beckett. And since he has no cars registered in his name, we have no proof."

"Ryan, listen, please listen. You have to seize that town car before he gets rid of the evidence."

"We would if we could, but he has no paper trail. We don't know where the car is, or where he lives. I'm sorry."

"Okay. Thanks for letting me know."

She feels like a twined metal cable, pulled tight, fraying fast, and about to snap. The combination of that and her burning want for Castle, who has been away for four days, prompts her to spin around and grab him. She walks backwards through the living room, kissing him the whole way, her left hand clamped to the back of his head, her right pulling him by the waistband of his pants. She doesn't stumble once, and when her calf hits the side of the bed, she falls back and brings him with her. She's never undressed him this quickly–or he, her–and by the time they're both naked he's already hard against her. "Now," she says, her heel digging into the small of his back. "Please." She uses her hands to draw him as close to her as possible, her nails so deep in the flesh of his buttocks that she feels a drop of blood. "Sorry," she mumbles. "Sorry."

She comes so fast and violently that it stuns both of them.

"Jesus, Kate," Castle blurts a few minutes later, as they're both trying to catch their breath.

She's quiet for a moment, and then says, "Again."

"What?"

"Again."

"Think I need a few more minutes."

"I know, but I don't. Please, Castle. Your mouth. Tongue, fingers. Please."

"Are you–"

"Am I what? Fine? Sure? Yes. Yes. Yes, I'm fine and sure. I need you so badly I'm almost out of my mind."

Later, when they're both sweat-slick and she's sprawled on top of him, he's running his hand lightly over her shoulder. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"About what?"

"This, what just happened."

"Sex is what just happened."

He tilts her chin so that she has to look directly at him. "Don't avoid me, Kate. Please. Let's talk about this."

"Okay. Okay." She closes her eyes, ducks her head, then brings it up again. "We were so close, so close to getting Simmons, and now we're nowhere. I feel as if we're being pushed into some black hole, and I'm frantic."

"I can tell."

"You're the only thing I'm sure of, Castle. The only thing. The only thing that's right and true and I felt like I had to fight something to be able to keep that. To prove that I'm strong enough to hang on."

"Not a doubt in my mind, Kate," he says, voice thick. "And we're hanging on together. Let's get up and take a shower and have something to eat. I have an idea."

For the rest of the afternoon her emotions soar and plummet, then soar again when Castle's suggestion pans out. They'd gone through all the surveillance photos for any hint of Simmons with a car, and there it is: he's standing near a garage. "That must be it," she says. "Has to be, don't you think?"

"Yes, and I know exactly where this is."

To scope out the location, find potential trouble spots, exit routes, and any number of other things, they take two taxis, separately, during rush hour. He goes one direction and she the other. When they join up again at home, they compare notes and firm up their plan. She, armed with a flashlight and a gun and, just in case, wearing a wire–Castle, of course, has all the necessary equipment–will go inside alone. With luck, the town car will be there and she can photograph the evidence they need. Castle will wait around the corner in the same beater they'd been in when Simmons had almost caught them.

"It's our good-luck car," he says.

"I hope to God you're right."

They wait until midnight before setting out for the garage. He leaves her off two blocks away, and she enters on tiptoe, using the flashlight guardedly. She locates the car quickly, and yanks off the tarp that covers it. There it is: a huge blood stain on the seat where Marks had been sitting less than 24 hours ago. She's about to photograph it when the overhead lights come on, and she pulls her gun from her waistband.

"Get a girl's hair wet and she never lets it go," Simmons says, walking out of the shadows. "You're not going to shoot me."

They have harsh words, each calling the other's bluff. She knows evidence there will convict him; he knows she has no warrant. "You lost this round," Simmons says, and adds, as if she were a six-year-old, "Now run along."

He's right, and she berates herself as she walks to the car. "I'm sorry," Castle says, as she slides into her seat, wanting to spare her the recitation of what had happened. He had, after all, heard the whole conversation, brief as it was.

"Not your fault. I should have given more thought to the chance of his being there."

"Calculated risk," he says, pulling away from the curb. "The odds were in our favor. His lawyers just got him off, at least for the moment. He's toxic. No way he should have been in there with that car."

"He's an arrogant bastard, Castle, and I was a fool not to take his hubris into account."

"We both were."

She looks out the window at the almost empty streets, feeling empty herself. "I swear, there has to be a way."

"We'll find it. But now it's late and we should get some sleep," says the voice of reason to her left. "I don't think he's gonna try anything right now. He'll lie low for a bit. In the morning we'll revisit this. I know you don't like the idea, but I think we ought to bring the boys in on this."

"No. I can't let them put their careers in jeopardy. Mine is one thing, but not theirs. Especially Ryan. He's got a wife and a new baby."

In fact, they get very little sleep because less than four hours after they go to bed her phone wakes them.

"Beckett," she says groggily.

"Detective? It's Captain Gates."

"Shit," she mouths to Castle, as she pulls herself into a sitting position. "Yes, sir. Uh, what can I do for you?"

"You can meet me and your team at the Farelli Garage on East Ninth Street."

"The Farelli Garage?" As if she'd never heard of it and didn't know its location. Her stomach has moved up to her esophagus and feels as though it's on its way to her throat.

"Yes. As of this minute, you're back on the Simmons case."

"I am?"

"Yes. He's been murdered. His body is here, in the garage. I expect to see you and Mister Castle soon, since you're not far away."

"Yes, sir. We'll be as fast as we can."

She ends the call and repeats the information to Castle. They're dressed in less than five minutes, and in the elevator on the way to get their car he pleads, "No one can know you were there, Kate. You can't tell a soul."

"I know."

It's the only thing they say until she stops at a light a block from the garage. "Let me out here," he says, releasing his seat belt and opening the door. "I'll get coffee for everyone."

Drawing on every bit of training she got at the academy, on her years of experience on the force, and her work with Dr. Burke, she manufactures a calm exterior. Gates and Lanie begin briefing her immediately. Simmons had been tortured before he died. Someone had methodically worked upward, firing first at the knees. There were five entry wounds, and Lanie thinks that the killer spent several minutes between each round.

"The shooter may have interrogated him," the Captain says, "inflicting pain to get information, perhaps."

Forensic evidence is almost nil. There are no footprints. Not only had the killer picked up the spent cartridges, he or she had also dug the bullets out of the corpse.

But what looks like something that's already on its way to being a cold case very soon turns into a sizzling hot one, with two damning bits of evidence pointing squarely at her. First, a witness in Ryan and Esposito's canvas describes seeing a woman "sneaking onto the property"–a woman who looks exactly like her. The boys tell Castle and he, in turn, tells her. Second, just after they've arrived at the precinct and are huddled in the break room a Captain from Internal Affairs strides towards Gates's office. As he's going through the door, Lanie calls with staggering news.

"There's a problem," the M.E. tells her. She'd found a bullet lodged in Simmons's spine that the killer must have missed it.

It sounds like promising news, but an icy sliver of dread slides down her spine. She tries to ignore it. "How is that a problem? Maybe ballistics will get a match."

"They did. It matches a gun registered to you, Kate. Simmons was killed with your gun."

"But you have your gun," Castle whispers, shocked. "It's not possible."

"It is," she whispers in return. "I'm carrying my backup. The one that Lanie's talking about is in our safe at home."

In that instant, they both realize that she's being set up. She takes one look at the suit from I.A. and knows why he's here. "Castle? See Captain Donovan, in Gates's office? He's here to arrest me. I have to go." The icy sliver is now an avalanche about to barrel into her and take her down. She squeezes Castle's hand and they exchange desperate looks. At the door she turns back and says, "Swings." She's sure he understands. He has to. It's her only chance. Their only chance.

She uses a circuitous route to the subway, then disembarks one station past the right one, and doubles back to the side entrance of their building where she can get to their garage without being seen. Both she and Castle keep bags of emergency clothes in the trunks of their cars. She pops open his Mercedes and rifles through both bags, taking jeans, sneakers, and makeup remover pads from hers. After cleaning her face and getting dressed in the car, she pulls on a hoody of his that's several sizes too big. She slips out of the side door and walks several blocks southeast to a movie theater that's playing a Chinese-language, martial-arts-action double feature. Despite the absence of subtitles, she gets the gist. The movies keep her safely off the streets and occupied, if sometimes confused, for almost four hours.

It's eight-thirty when she ambles out of the theater. She's grateful for the crowded streets, and–once she reaches the little park that's her destination–darkness that is only occasionally pierced by old-fashioned cast-iron lamps. Castle is twenty yards ahead, sitting on a swing. His posture is tense, and there's none of the joy in him that she associates with this place, which is one of their favorites. She approaches him from behind and lightly cups his elbow. "Hey."

"Thank God, oh, thank God," he says, pushing himself off the swing and engulfing her in a hug. "Your picture is already on TV. Donovan must have half the force looking for you."

"I guess they didn't think to look in the Chinese movie theater on the Bowery, then." She's terrified, but for his sake and hers she's trying to bring a little lightness with her.

"That's where you were?"

"Double feature."

"Very smart. Nice hoody, by the way," he says, doing his bit for lightness.

"I like it. Smells like my favorite person."

His smile almost makes her feel that everything will be all right. "Here," he says, drawing two small packages out of his jacket pocket. "Matching burner phones for us. Donovan is sure you killed Simmons; Gates is standing up for you. He kicked me out of the precinct, by the way. We have to get moving, but I have to tell you two things. I told the boys about–"

"No, Castle! I said not to."

"Too late. They figured it out, mostly, and I just filled in the blanks. After they quote escorted me end quote out of the Twelfth they asked what was going on and I said you didn't want them involved. They said they already were, they're family, and they knew this was bigger than Simmons."

"How did they know?"

"When they were running a canvas in Marks's hotel, a guy on the staff said that Marks had met with a man a few hours before he was killed."

"What man?"

"Ryan showed me the sketch the police artist did and said, 'Look familiar?' It was Smith. He and Espo asked me a few leading questions, and I had to answer."

"But wait. Smith? Our Smith? Why would he be meeting with Marks? Why isn't he staying as far away from Bracken as possible?"

"I don't know. But just before you got here, he called me on my allegedly untraceable phone." He holds up his new burner. "I have no idea how he got the number, but I'm guessing that that sketch was circulated a lot more widely than those things usually are, and it got to him. He wants to meet in twenty minutes. We have to go."

"No, I have to go. You have to go home, Castle. I'm radioactive."

"He's not going to talk to you, Kate. He might talk to both of us, but not you."

And so, nineteen minutes later, they're behind a column in yet another parking garage, this one massive. Smith appears like something from the mist.

When they ask why he met with Marks, he replies, "I can survive in the shadows. I just don't want to live there forever."

"You need to take Bracken down," Castle says. "Just as we do."

Smith had found a way to do it, except that something had happened. He'd managed to get to one of Bracken's men–they don't ask how, and he wouldn't have told them if they had–who told him that a former associate had a tape in which Bracken admitted to murder.

"Where is it?" she asks.

"I don't know, and neither does the Senator, though following separate and very expensive paths we both tried to find it. Maybe it's a lie, though I've a strong feeling it isn't. But while I was looking, I made another contact–someone who said he was going to expose Bracken's financial corruption. And it got him killed."

"Marks," they say in unison.

"Yes. I was on the cusp of bringing him into the fold, but someone must have found out, and that was the end of him."

She shivers at his matter-of-factness. Apparently that's what's helped keep him alive, too.

"I've told you all I can, and now I'm leaving. I have to find another way to get Bracken now."

"We can help," she says eagerly. "We've got a line into Vulcan's business."

"I don't care. I'm here to tell you, both of you, not to try to get in touch with me again, or to flush me out. Do you understand?"

"There must be something we can do," Castle says, still pressing.

"Disappear. Just as I'm going to do. If you don't, he'll kill you."/

With that, he's gone. It's as if he can walk through walls. A true ghost. She's staring at the spot where Smith had stood when Castle grabs her hand. "We're out of here."

Two taxis and two subway rides later they're in some part of Queens that looks like some circle of Hell. She needs to change her look, so he goes into an all-night drug store and buys hair coloring and scissors, and then they check into a fleabag motel. Cash. No ID.

She still wants to go after Bracken, but Castle is against it. "What, and look for a tape that could be as mythical as a unicorn? Smith is right, we need to run.

"We won't find the truth if we run, Castle."

"We won't find it if we're six feet under. Right now we're doing what we have to to stay alive. We will get Bracken. You know it. I know it. But we have to get somewhere safe and make a plan. Do it right. Take our time. I have a friend who's giving us a car, and we'll drive north. Maine, maybe. Just for a while. But we have to get you out of New York. I'm going to get the car now, while you turn yourself into a blonde. I shouldn't be too long. Okay?"

"Okay."

She's in the bathroom, just about to cut her hair short, when she hears the door open. "Castle?" He must have forgotten something. "Castle?" With the scissors in her hand, she goes back to the bedroom. Bracken is standing by the bed, and two musclemen are standing in the corner, their revolvers aimed at her head.

"Drop the scissors," one commands.

She does.

"I held up my end of the bargain," Bracken says. "I even saved your life."

"And I saved yours, you son of a bitch."

"Nice language from a decorated detective. I'd have thought better of you. But I guess our mutual friend Vulcan was right. You're just a guttersnipe like your mother. A do-gooder, but a guttersnipe."

The exchange gets worse until finally she says, "Kill me. Do it. That's why you're here. Pull the trigger, you fucking coward."

"Oh, I have people for that."

"You don't have the balls, do you?"

"You know I'm smarter than that. I'm not leaving a trail of evidence." He reaches out and touches her face and she recoils. "Goodbye, Kate."

"The truth will come out, Bracken."

"There is no truth. I've seen to that. It took years, but I've seen to that. And now the Presidency is mine for the taking."

He leaves, and she's facing a pair of trained thugs. One is coming towards her with a pill; she punches him in the gut, but the other one grabs her and jabs the gun into her forehead. The one she'd punched picks up the pill and forces her to take it.

How long has it been? A minute? A second? An hour? Where is Castle? Don't come in. That's what she wants to scream, don't come in, but she can't make her mouth work. She's in a chair but the room is moving. "What was that pill?" she asks one of the men. She thought there were two of them, but they look strange, as if their profiles are shifting, like they're shape shifters. Are there four of them?

Thug One, the one she'd hit, says, "That pill was to relax you. Now you're going to have a drink." He leans down, picks up a bottle from the floor, and unscrews the top. She sees the label. NONONONONONONO. She can't think, but she can't have that. She won't drink that. NONONONONONONO. She tries to kick him, but her aim is wild. Thug Two grabs her by the hair and yanks her head back, and Thug One pours whiskey down her throat. He pours and pours and pours. When she gags, he stops, and then pours some more. It's filling her mouth. He's making her swallow it. He holds her jaw closed until she swallows it. NONONONONONONO.

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you all. I hope that I can write the next chapter much more quickly than I did this one, now that I'm back home.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I used to watch the show. c

He's shoving the bottle hard against her lips, pouring the liquor down her throat so roughly that some of it runs down her chin and onto her shirt and hoody. She wants to stop him but she can't. She's trying to concentrate before she blacks out. At this rate she'll black out. How does it work? She studied this. She can make herself remember. The alcohol is going into her stomach and her small intestine and then into her bloodstream. Her blood is already filled with it. Her blood hasn't had any alcohol in it for a long time, and here it is. Here it is again, William Bracken, may you fry in hell.

Focus, she has to focus. All she can come up with is that it's rotgut in her mouth, everywhere. They're filling her up with the crappiest bourbon there is. The label looms up in her mind and blocks out everything. It's $6.49 a bottle. She knows. She's seen it before. Even on the worst of her drinking days, she bought only really fine bourbon. If I'm going to go down, she used to think–when she thought at all–at least I'm going to go down with the good stuff.

"Do something before you're too drunk," she tells herself. Do something. Bracken isn't here. These goons are his goons. She wants to kill Bracken but he's somewhere else, not in this shitty motel. If she can't kill him, she'll kill his goons.

She'd heard Goon One say to Goon Two, "Get the gun. She's wasted." And then he'd said to her, "Relax. It's almost over."

Maybe it is. Maybe this is the way she goes out. But if she does, she'll take them with her. Somehow. She's still in the chair, but they've taken the bottle away and now she's crumpled over. Goon One puts the gun in her hand, molds her fingers to it, aims it at her temple. They're going to make it look like a suicide. No way. His face is right in front of hers. She's in the chair, and he's leaning down. She's trying to look him in the eyes but hers keep closing. She feels him putting his finger over her finger. They're going to press the trigger together and the bullet will tear her brain apart and her alcohol-rich blood will spray all over the room. She'll die drunk. That's what everyone will say, once a drunk always a drunk. The woman had no spine.

No. She has spine. Spine, she has to straighten her spine. She can do this before the booze completely takes over. She'll snap her spine. That should do it, snap. Snap, snap, snap. She snaps the gun backwards and fires wildly. Did she hit Goon Two? Maybe, maybe. Can't stop. She points the gun at Goon One, and when he tries to push it away she kicks him in the face. No time to kick him in the balls. She fires into his chest. Bullseye. He's gone. The pill that she'd jammed into the space above one of her incisors is still there; she dislodges it with her tongue and spits it onto his chest. It's in the middle of his jacket, and blood is oozing out just above it. It will be covered in blood in a minute. She doesn't have a minute to watch, not a second. She has to move, but did she get Goon Two? Everything is buzzing. It's the booze, it's the adrenaline. Adrenaline, right? Isn't that what comes with things like this? This horror movie that she's in?

Her head is exploding, and then it's splitting open. From outside, not inside. She screams and spins in the direction of whatever just hit her on the head. The bottle. Son of a bitch. Goon Two. This time she doesn't miss, and when she fires he hits the floor. One to the heart. He's dead, but it's not enough. Not nearly enough. She'd like to empty the rest of the chamber into him, but two will do. Two into his gut. That's three. Three's a charm.

When she touches the top of her head she feels something warm and sticky. She pulls her hand away and stares: there's blood all over it. There's a piece of glass embedded in her finger, too. She can't pull it out. Too deep. She has to get out. Get out, get out. Where is Castle? He went to get a car. Come back, Castle. Except she's drunk. What will he do when he sees her drunk? And she must reek of booze, it's all over her. Booze and blood. The room is tilting. There's the door, she opens the door. The floor is slanting, the corridor is tipping, she's trying to hold onto the wall but it's slippery, her blood is making it slippery. She can't keep her balance. Castle, Castle. She's falling. Castle, Castle.

He pulls into the shallow parking lot that runs the length of the motel. The car is deliberately nondescript, dark blue that could be mistaken for green or black. It's a no-frills, nine-year-old sedan, but it has a brand-new Audi engine under the hood. He looks around quickly and strides to the side door, which opens easily when he presses a credit card against the flimsy lock; security is non-existent here. Their room is at the end of the corridor: he'd asked for it as an extra precaution. Fifty feet ahead he'll turn left and be there. Kate must be a blonde by now, with short hair. Maybe spiky, the way it had been when they'd met. He makes the turn as he's fishing the key out of his pocket and almost stumbles over her. The light is feeble, probably 40 watts, but it catches on something in her hair. Jesus, her head is bleeding and her scalp is covered with broken glass. When he drops to his knees he sees streaks of blood all over the wall, some large smears, some that look as if they were made by a hand dragged across the surface. Her hand. Her hand is bleeding, too.

"Kate. Kate." He cradles her head. What the hell happened? "Can you hear me? Kate?" He strokes her cheek and her eyes flutter open briefly before rolling back. He has to get her away from here. He's so intent on her injuries that only when he scoops her into his arms does he realize that she smells like she's been on a bender in a dive bar. Her breathing is all right, at least. He's holding her against his chest, and her head falls back over his arm.

They should be on the road now, but he knows that he has to check the room. The door's still open, so he doesn't have to struggle with a key while he's holding her. He's seen countless crime scenes, but none sickened him as this one does. There are two dead men on the floor, both obviously shot. It's awkward to carry her and do anything else, but he drapes her over his shoulder so that he can pat the corpses' pockets. No ID, no surprise. More of Bracken's dispensable workforce. There's a shattered bottle of bourbon on the floor; whatever contents remained after Kate had finished drinking have soaked into the thin carpeting. He's guessing that the two men forced her, and that one of them also struck her in the head. It's the only thing that makes sense. If they weren't already dead, he'd kill them. There's a gun on the floor, and another on a table. Did one man shoot the other, and then Kate shoot him? She's the only person alive, so she must have killed at least one of them. He can't stop any longer to speculate, and he can't let himself imagine what had gone on here in the brief period that he was away. The bathroom light is still on; he slides the scissors and the unused hair coloring off the sink, and pulls two clean if threadbare towels from a bar. He shoves everything into her bag, which he'd spied on the bed, and puts it over his free shoulder. Sending up a silent prayer to anyone who might be listening, he walks as fast as possible to the car. He passes no one.

Once he has buckled her into the passenger seat next to him, he drives a short distance to a vacant lot that he'd noticed on the way back to the motel, and parks. Assisted only by ambient light–he's afraid to use anything brighter, like the flashlight on his phone–he picks glass out of her scalp and hair, then rinses her wounds with one of a dozen bottles of water that his friend had given him. He can't get the shard of glass out of her finger; it will have to wait. At least the towels stanch the bleeding on her head. She moans and winces a few times while he works. "I'm so sorry, Kate. I'm so sorry," he says again and again and again. His beautiful wife. What did they do to her? What the hell did they do? He's about to turn the key in the ignition when he changes his mind, leans over his seat to get another bottle of water and uncaps it. He takes the handkerchief from his pocket, dampens it, and very gently washes her face. At least when she wakes up she won't taste liquor on her lips. At least he can give her that. He shudders when he sees a red mark above her lip, the beginning of a bruise, and wonders if that's where one of those bastards shoved the bottle hard against that spot. He takes a few more seconds to look at her, to try to consider what he can say to her when she's awake, and not break down.

Traffic is light in this neighborhood at this time of night, and they soon pass the city limits. At the first exit he gets off the highway and begins navigating a network of minor streets and state roads almost due north. As often as he can, he holds her hand. He should be making a serious, step-by-step plan for what to do next, but all he can think about is Kate. What Bracken has done to Kate. They'd been so careful, yet somehow the senator's hit squad had tracked them to the motel, where they attacked her. What had they said to her? What had she endured? At least he'd had the wits yesterday, after he'd left the precinct, to go home and fetch their passports and $10,000 in cash from the safe. That will get them into Canada, unless there's an APB out on her that's reached border guards. He can't let himself dwell on that.

In a suburb of Albany he detours onto a commercial street near the light-rail station and spots what he needs: a diner that has just opened for the day, making takeout breakfasts for people who go to work before dawn. There's a small parking area in the rear, and he chooses the slot farthest from the door. Pulling on a baseball cap and some glasses with nonprescription lenses–a simple but he hopes adequate disguise–he trots across the street to the pharmacy that's also just opened, and buys aspirin, antibacterial ointment, gauze, and tape. Once inside the diner he joins the line–luckily there's only one person ahead of him–and orders four coffees, two egg sandwiches, and two doughnuts. She's going to have a monstrous hangover.

She's hardly moved for three hours, but when he opens the car door she groans and turns her face towards him, squinting even though the roof light is very dim. "Castle?"

"Hi."

Her hand moves slowly and tentatively to her temple. "Oh, God. My head."

"Here. Have this coffee, sweetheart."

"Can't."

"It's good. I promise."

"It hurts."

"I bet it does. You've got a hell of a cut on your scalp, but I cleaned it and it doesn't seem to need stitches." He's trying to sound calm and level-headed. He opens the pharmacy bag that's on his lap, breaks the seal on the bottle of aspirin, and puts two tablets in her hand. "These are for you."

The look in her eyes–a combination of physical and emotional pain, confusion, guilt, and fear–almost does him in. When she says, "Castle," the despair in those two familiar syllables is shattering.

It's up to him to hold it together. "Please, Kate. Drink some coffee and take the aspirin." He waits for her to swallow them, and gives her an encouraging–please, God–smile. "I have scrambled-egg sandwiches for us. Need to get some food in you."

"The motel."

"Shh, don't talk about that yet." He unwraps a sandwich and sets in her hand. "Have some eggs."

"They made me–"

He puts his finger to her lips. "Not now, not now. Okay?"

"It's not just the cuts that hurt, Castle. They're nothing. It's the other–. It's–. I tried not to drink it, I tried." Her voice breaks. "I tried."

That's what breaks him, that what troubles her most, what has taken over ahead of all else, is that she couldn't prevent those men from forcing her to drink. She drank. He wraps his arms around her, and rocks and rocks and rocks her. "I know you did," he whispers into her hair. "I know you did, Kate." Eventually he lets her go, and straightens up again. "Let's eat, okay? And then we'll get back on the road."

"I'm hungover," she says, so faintly that he almost misses it.

"That's why there's coffee and eggs," he says, squeezing her knee.

At last she picks up her cup again, and takes a few sips. "Where are we?" she asks, tonelessly.

"Outside Albany. We'll be in Bennington, Vermont, in less than an hour. I have an old friend near there and we can stop for a bit. I want to dress that cut on your head, and get that glass out of your finger. I got stuff for that. And then we'll go to Canada. We should be fine if we stay on the back roads." He takes two sizable bites of his sandwich, suddenly realizing that he's hungry. While he chews he looks sideways at her, and can tell that that she's mulling something over. He'll wait her out, but they have to keep moving.

"You eat and I'll drive," he says, putting his sandwich on his thigh before nosing the car out into the street. It's getting light and he doesn't want to be in the center of a town when the sun's up. It's a few minutes before she speaks again.

"Did you go inside?"

"Inside?"

"The motel. You must have gone in. The last thing I remember is falling down in the hallway."

Oh, shit. There's no way to avoid this. He just wishes that they could wait to discuss it until they're safe somewhere. "Yes, I picked you up and carried you to the car."

Another long, fraught silence follows. "Did you go into the room?"

He can't lie. They promised each other when she began going to AA that they wouldn't keep things from one another. His throat feels as though it's narrowing, and it's hard to get enough air to respond. "Yes."

"He was there."

What? He? "Who?"

"Bracken. At the motel. Before."

"Jesus, _Bracken_ did this to you?" He stops himself before he can ask about the dead men, but his grip tightens around the steering wheel.

"Wouldn't sully his hands with that," she says, staring out the windshield. "He called my mother and me guttersnipes and said goodbye. Unchained his two pet thugs and left them to do his dirty work."

He doesn't know what to say. Even if he did, he couldn't push the words out.

"You saw them, right? In the room? They were dead, weren't they?"

"Yes."

"I killed them."

"Kate–"

"I have to tell you, Castle. I have to tell you what happened."

He steals a look at her. She's deathly pale and obviously in pain. "Okay. But please drink some coffee. Or water, there are bottles behind you." He understands enough about shock and severe trauma to know that survivors of it often need to recount, sometimes in minute detail, what they've just been through. Much as he wants not to hear it, he has to listen. She's the one who had to live it; he feels like a coward.

She tells her story without emotion, as if she were reading a recipe from a magazine. It's self-protection, he knows. Just as they cross the state line into Vermont, she finishes.

"I should never have left you there alone, Kate."

"That's not a burden you should be carrying, Castle. We didn't have time. You had to get the car, and I had to cut and color my hair." She pats her head. "Ouch. Shit. Which I didn't."

"You can do it when we reach my friend's house. It's only a few more miles."

She lapses into silence again, until her arm shoots out and she clutches the dashboard. "Stop the car. Stop. Stop."

There's no one ahead or behind them, so he pulls sharply onto the pebbled shoulder. "Are you sick? Do you need to get out?"

"No. No, no. We have to go home."

What brought that on? "It's not safe."

"We have to go. Now. It's about my mom. I just remembered something. Please, turn around."

TBC

 **A/N** And away we go!


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I used to watch the show.

She tells him about the dream she'd woken from less than half an hour ago, in which she relived meeting Montgomery when she was a rookie. He'd seen her with the box of her mother's files and said she wouldn't find any answers there. Then he'd asked if she'd looked through her personal belongings. "Old notebooks, journals, diaries, cassette recordings, stuff like that?" When she'd said that she had, countless times, he'd added, "Well, keep looking. You never know when something might turn up."

Given the amount of liquor she'd consumed, and the severity of the blow to her head, he's inclined to dismiss this as fantasy, but she insists that it had happened exactly that way. "I'd forgotten it until this dream. I didn't understand Montgomery then, but I do now. He's the one who made that recording of Bracken, the one that Smith's been looking for. He specifically said 'cassettes' to me all those years ago."

It's when she makes the connection to the tapes that he begins to change his mind. "You're right. Smith said whoever made the recording was a former associate of Bracken's. But wait. If Montgomery had that kind of evidence, why didn't he just give it to Smith?"

For the first time since they'd gone on the run, her eyes light up. "He asked me, Castle. Asked me if I'd come across a cassette in her things. I think he must have given it to her. Even then, he felt guilty. I just didn't find it because I didn't know what I was looking for. Nothing clicked. But I have a box of her things in the loft. We have to go back. There's something there, I know it. Something that will lead us to it."

Her hopes are soaring at the same rate as his worry. "We can't, Kate. There's bound to be a warrant out for you by now. For me, too, probably. Aiding and abetting. That I.A. guy, Donovan? He'll have cops at the loft. No way we can get anywhere near it."

"Where's my burner?"

"In your bag, why?"

"I'm calling in reinforcements. The boys. I have an idea."

He'd have phoned Ryan, but she opts for Espo, and she's probably made the right choice. In some ways the two of them are like brother and sister, and he's more likely to bend a rule than Ryan, who still clings to a few tattered vestiges of his Catholic School training. But it turns out that both men are willing accomplices, and they agree that she'll text them when she's close, and they'll make their move.

Because they have to stay off the interstate, the trip takes five hours. They stop only twice, once at a gas station in northern Connecticut, where he fills the tank and buys enough snack food–the only thing available–to stave off hunger without putting them into sugar shock or a carbohydrate coma. A few miles past it they pull into a woodsy picnic area which is not only hidden from the road but at the moment has no picnickers. It's there that he quickly but properly cleans her cuts and works the glass out of her finger. When he sees the extent of the wound on her scalp, he realizes that she should have had stitches, but they'll have to wait. The bruise on her lip is very visible now, too, purplish and swollen; it must hurt, but she won't say so.

In fact, she doesn't say much at all as they drive to Manhattan, and he understands why. First, she must feel talked out after recounting the horrors that transpired in the motel room. Second, she's hungover–hungover in a way that she never has been before. Third, she's in a bitter morass of emotions. Fourth, the past is weighing more heavily on her than ever. She knows–they both know–that this is their last chance at Bracken. There won't be another. Past, present, and future are fused together today. This is it.

When they approach the state's southern border, she suddenly announces, "Espo said that he and Ryan told Gates about my mother's murder."

That surprises him. "Really? How did she react?"

"She wanted them to fill her in on everything, especially as the case relates to Bracken. Espo said, 'She's pullin' for you, Beckett.' It was, I don't know, reassuring. It made me feel absolved, somehow."

Absolution? Kate shouldn't need absolution, even if she thinks so.

When they're roughly twenty minutes from home she sends a one-word text to Ryan: "Go." And then she gasps. "Oh, my God. Gummy! Where is he? He'll freak out if anyone comes bursting in."

"Shhh, it's okay. He's with Alexis. I called her yesterday. She has only one more final, and it's not until the end of the week, so she drove out to the Hamptons with him."

He can feel exactly how tense she has become. "What if?" She looks at him, her eyes huge. "You know."

Hoping that he sounds convincingly calm when in reality he's sickened with fear, he answers, "If anything happens, she'll fly to L.A. with the dog and stay with Meredith for a while."

They're crossing 14th Street when she gets a thumb's up text from Ryan. "The boys are in place," she says.

Using the spare toggle that he keeps on his key chain, they get into the garage of their building with no trouble and without notice. When they come off the freight elevator on their floor, they're relieved and happy to find Espo and Ryan "guarding" the loft's entrance. The two of them had badged the cops who'd been stationed there and told them in the commanding tones of detectives to take an early lunch.

"Thanks," she says. He sees them exchange looks, clearly about her appearance, and shakes his head just enough to convey his don't-say-a-word message.

"You've only got a couple of minutes, guys," Ryan says.

"Sorry," his partner adds.

"We're grateful for what you're giving us," he says, entering the loft right behind his wife, who is running to a cabinet in the living room. She yanks open a door, withdraws a small box, upends it, and lets the contents spill onto the floor. "No tape," he says, needlessly.

"I know. She must have hidden it. But if she had it, she'd have made a note about it somewhere."

He picks up a handsome leather-bound journal and flicks through it. Every entry is illegible. "Goddammit."

"It's her code, Castle," she says, looking over his shoulder. "Used it just in her personal journal. No one has been able to break it, and believe me I've given it to the best. I've got to look in these notebooks, c'mon. I need your help."

But his eyes have already traveled to the last page that Johanna Beckett had written on in her journal. The entry is dated January 9th, 1999. He winces: it's the day that she died. "Look, Kate. This is her final–. Uh, it says 'D Me w/Family'."

A shadow moves across her bruised face. "Just dinner with family. That's all." She returns to flipping through one of notebooks.

"I don't think so," he insists, cupping her elbow. "Capital M for 'me' doesn't make sense. Besides, the D is squished up against the M. More like DM. What's that mean?"

That stops her. "Detective Montgomery? Could that be it?"

"And E? What about that? Detective Montgomery evidence? Kate, she must have been bringing the tape to you and your father. Maybe she wanted him to lock it up in his office?"

She has dropped the notebook and is focused on the scribble made so long ago by her mother. It might even be the last thing that she'd ever set on paper. "She would have had it with her, then. When she was murdered. Bracken would have gotten it, but he didn't."

"Which is why he's still stopping at nothing to find it, including framing you for murdering Simmons."

"So what the hell did she do with it, Castle?"

Before he can speculate, there's a splintering crash as the front door of the loft is knocked off its hinges by a heavily armed SWAT team, all of whom are screaming at them.

"Hands in the air! Down on the floor! Down on the floor!"

He and Kate offer no resistance. It's futile. When they're cuffed and pulled to their feet, he sees Donovan standing smugly a few feet away, hands on his hips. Through the damaged doorway, he also gets a glimpse of Ryan and Esposito, both already in cuffs. The former looks sad; the latter, furious and glowering at the captain from Internal Affairs.

"Thought we'd find you here, Esposito," Donovan says.

"Yeah? Some of us stand with our friends. Know they're solid. So that wasn't a stretch, even for you. Bet you need three hands and GPS to find your rat's ass."

Oh, Jesus, he's just thrown his career away. Except it's probably already gone; he's sacrificed it for Kate. For the second time. She's silent, and so is Ryan. And so is he, much as he'd like to follow Esposito's lead. Even in this godawful situation, he's inwardly laughing at "find your rat's ass." The next time he speaks to him, he'll congratulate him for that. If he ever speaks to him again. They'll all be put in different interrogation rooms, sent to different holding cells. Oh, God, Kate. Kate, Kate, Kate. She's staring straight ahead, expressionlessly, but as they're marched to the elevator, she manages to touch his little finger with hers.

On the way to the precinct, Donovan turns his rage and contempt on her. "You're a disgrace, Detective," he says, spittle at the corner of his mouth. "You're not only a murderer, you reek of booze. Celebrating after you took down Simmons, maybe? You look like you went a few rounds in a bar, too. Got a helluva fat lip there."

If he could reach over the front seat and strangle Donovan with his cuffs, he would. He'd head butt him, smash his face in, to hell with the consequences. And then he'd break out of the van and hunt down Bracken and shoot him between his beady, lying eyes. Instead he says, "Shut the fuck up, Donovan. You don't know what you're talking about." If it's the last thing he does, at least he'll die defending the love of his life.

When they're pushed into the bullpen, Kate whispers an apology to the boys, and they answer softly that the blame is theirs. It isn't. There is none.

Donovan says, "Keep them there 'til I get back. I want to personally escort them to booking."

Son of a bitch. He figures he might as well keep talking, so he calls out, "Hey, Captain, your sixth-grade teacher's rising from the dead. You just split an infinitive."

Donovan stomps away to find Gates, and Kate turns to him. She looks as if she's about to collapse from the weight of guilt. "It's not your fault," he says, though he knows that she doesn't believe it.

"I really thought we were going to make it, Castle."

He pulls her tight against him and kisses her with everything he has left. When they break away, he feels her head move against his shoulder. "Castle," she says. "Castle." Her voice has an edge. "The elephants, the elephants."

"What?"

"On my desk. Look, look. They belonged to my mom. I put them on my desk because they used to be on hers. She said they were like a family. Mom, Dad, me. Don't you see?"

She stumbles towards her desk and grabs the little row of ceramic elephants. Donovan draws his gun on her; if Gates hadn't taken his arm, he'd have shot her, no question. Shot her dead in the room where she'd solved God knows how many homicides. Donovan is screaming at her to step back, but she won't. He orders her to drop the elephants, but she won't. And in that instant, when she pulls the back off the statue and a cassette tumbles to her feet, the world changes. Everything was wrong; everything is right.

He doesn't need to hear what's on that tape, he's sure of it. When they crowd into Gate's office to listen to it, he feels as if he's heard it before, the damning evidence, all in Bracken's voice, of extortion, of murder. He's been watching Kate the whole time, and her expression hasn't changed. There's nothing exultant there, no smile. She's just serious. He wonders if she's aware that she has pressed two fingers lightly on the ugly bruise above her lip, as if Bracken himself had put it there–which in effect he had. Her face finally changes when the slightly scratchy tape, made more than fifteen years ago, yields this: Bracken says icily to Montgomery, "Anyone gets too close, like that bitch lawyer Johanna Beckett who's been poking around, I'll have them killed. I've had people killed before."

Others in the room might have expected her to look like an avenging angel, or to have said something like, "Got you, you son of a bitch." But he knows her better than they; he could have safely staked his entire fortune on what she'd do, and she does it. Her face softens, but her posture becomes that of a West Point Cadet. She is full of resolve and unexpressed relief. There's no joy in bringing Bracken down, because it won't bring back her mother–or Montgomery. But there is satisfaction and fulfillment and he knows what will come next. The arrest. They have to give her that, let her be the one to face down Bracken, wherever he is, and charge him. She's earned it.

Gates agrees, but first there's a quick debriefing in which Kate explains what happened in the motel. Then there's some preliminary paperwork to be done, a warrant to be drawn up, before Kate and the team can confront the Senator. When Kate goes to the ladies room he ask the captain privately if he and Kate can go home so that she can take a shower and change clothes. No explanation is necessary, and Gates is very warm.

"Of course, Mister Castle. We want her looking her best for this." She looks down at her desk, spreading her fingers out to steady herself before she raises her eyes again. "Until Detectives Esposito and Ryan filled me in, I didn't fully appreciate just how harrowing a road she has had to travel all these years. I'm very sorry. Do you think she can be ready in an hour?"

Bless her. She's trying her best to have the takedown make the evening news. "Thank you. Yes, sir."

"Good. I'll see you then."

Gates has a squad car waiting to take them to the loft, which means that they're home in six minutes. She doesn't say a word the whole way, but never lets go of his hand, either. While she's in the shower he picks out something for her to wear, rejecting half a dozen things before inspiration arrives. Blue. She should wear blue. Blue for truth; blue for trust; blue for the blue line she's been part of so long, and blue for heaven. He takes a sky-blue blouse and a navy blue jacket from the walk-in closet, and places them neatly on the bed.

She's wrapped in a towel and using the hair dryer when he brings her clean underwear and a cup of coffee. "I know caffeine doesn't steady nerves," he says to her reflection in the mirror, "but you don't seem unsteady to me, Kate."

She wraps her arms around him and holds on for a long time, and then speaks for the first time since the debrief. "Thank you," she murmurs against his neck. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Think you can be all set in twelve minutes?"

She nods.

"Good."

She's done in ten, and still not speaking. She takes his hand again, and they ride the elevator down to the lobby and the black-and-white outside. "I've never been so proud of anyone, for anyone, in my life," he says, kissing her at the curb. "I'm going to get our car and drive downtown. I'll be there when you're done."

As luck would have it–and God knows they deserve some luck–Bracken is in his New York City office, sitting for a sanctimonious TV interview when Kate strides in and arrests him. He wishes he were in there, but his consultancy title stretches only so far. Still, Ryan is right behind her, recording every word on his phone. He'd have given a lot to see the expression on Bracken's face when she'd walked in there, but he'll have the next best thing: video footage. Cameras in the room will still be rolling. No one's going to miss having the story of the decade on tape.

He hears it before he sees it, the noise of a crowd of journalists and cops as they spill through the doors and down the wide, double flight of stairs. She's literally front and center, gripping the wrist of the shocked, bristling, manacled Senator. It's real, he keeps reminding himself, but it's the most compelling bit of theater that he's ever seen. When they reach the sidewalk, Esposito appears as if from stage left, and shoves Bracken into the back seat of a car.

She catches sight of him then, and runs to meet him. "You're magnificent," he says as they embrace. "Your mother is here, she's here."

"So are you, Castle. I couldn't have done this without you. Any of it."

He pulls away just enough so that he can look into her eyes. They're luminous. "Let's go home."

"Yeah, let's go home. We have so much to talk about."

"Whenever you're ready, Kate."

She strokes his cheek, and leaves her hand there. "I'm ready, Castle. I'm ready."

TBC

 **A/N** One chapter to go, an epilogue. Thank you all.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I used to watch the show.

She'd really wanted to talk when they got home, but as soon she sheds her jacket she all but collapses. "I'm sorry, Castle," she says a few moments later, leaning against him as they sit on stools in the kitchen. "Everything's just crashing in on me. I feel as if we should be setting off fireworks on the roof now that we have Bracken, but I'm numb. And exhausted. I can't even think." With her elbows propped on the counter and her forehead against the heels of her hands, she feels his warm palm come to rest on her back, and his lips against her cheekbone.

"You know what else, Kate? You've haven't had a meal all day. You're hungry."

"Not really–"

"You probably don't want to eat, just sleep, but it'll do you good to have something first. What if I give you your favorite midnight snack?"

"Is it midnight?"

"No, more like eight-thirty, but if ever there were a time for rule-breaking, this is it."

She lifts her head to watch him open a cabinet and a drawer. How did she get this lucky? To have him in her life, to be the most important part of her life? To have him go through hell with her but know that he is as in love with her as she is with him?

"Here," he says, passing her a spoonful of peanut butter. "Enjoy it. I slaved for hours over this."

"Mmm. Yum." She licks the spoon clean and smiles. When was the last time she'd smiled? She can't remember. "Thank you. That gives me the strength to wash my face, brush my teeth, and take off my clothes." When she sets her phone on her night stand, she notices that it's 8:48 p.m. and figures she'll be out by 8:49.

He'd thought about curling up next to her, but she'd fallen asleep before he'd had a chance to take his shoes off. Besides, he's wide awake. He stands near the doorway for a while, watching her. He wants to see her really relax while she's sleeping, and when she rolls over onto his side of the bed, and takes over half his pillow, she finally does. She looks light, somehow–filled with light. It touches him more than anything has since they got married, five months ago. It travels to some unexplored place deep inside him, a place that he hadn't known existed before they'd fallen in love, a place that he hadn't dared to visit until now, with Bracken locked up. A place that allows him to imagine fully, without restrictions, a life with her that is free of the specters that have haunted her for so long.

With some reluctance he turns and walks into his office. He wants to make notes about everything that has happened in the last two days before the details begin to fade. It's hard to believe that they could, but they almost certainly will. He wants a record of all of it, the tangible things but especially the intangible, every emotion that the two of them have experienced in this short span. But first he phones his daughter, whom he'd spoken to only briefly while Kate was inside with Bracken. At the end he asks if she could drive back in the morning, and bring Gummy.

"I can't thank you enough for what you did, Alexis. You must have been scared for us."

"I was. But it's really over now, right, Dad?"

"It is. And if you're too tired to make the drive, I'll send a car. You could use the study time."

"That's all I've been doing out here. That and play with the dog."

"Sorry, what was I thinking? Anyway, the offer stands."

When they're through he opens a new file on his laptop and begins to type, but gets up at regular intervals to check on Kate. Eventually he trusts himself, and her, enough that he stays put and gets lost in his writing.

She sits up, gasping, clutching her throat. There's not enough air here. She can't breathe right. It's dark. She looks frantically around the room. Where's Castle? Why can't she fill her lungs? She's alone. Where's Castle? Where's Gummy? The sheets are tangled around her feet; she can't get out of bed. "Castle!" She hadn't meant to scream, but it sounds as though she did. "Castle!" She's kicking at the sheets. God, thank God, she's out. She stumbles out of bed and starts to run, but the door opens before she's halfway across the floor.

"Kate! Kate!"

He's here. He's holding her. She's safe. She's not safe. Safe. Not. "What time is it?"

"Almost midnight. What happened, Kate?"

"I have to tell someone. I have to get dressed."

"Shhh, hold on. Shhh. It's late and you're exhausted. Whatever this is can wait until morning."

"No. No, it can't. You have to let go." She shoves her fists weakly against his chest. "I killed two people, Castle, I shot them. I was drunk and I shot them. They're dead. I have to tell Gates. And Emily. I have to tell her." But that makes him hold her even closer, his fingers in her hair.

She hears him say, over and over, "It's all right. You told Gates. She knows. It was self-defense. Self-defense. Everything's all right."

Suddenly she wishes that she could climb inside him, have him completely surround her. If only she could do that, she'd stay that way until maybe one day she'd have the strength to get up. She's clinging to him even harder than he is to her, until finally she understands what he's been saying to her. "I told Gates? You're sure? I confessed?"

 _Confessed?_ She thinks she has something to confess? He feels as if he's been tackled by the entire defensive line of the New York Giants. What has all this horror done to her ability to reason? "Let's sit down, okay?" With his arm around her shoulder he steers her to the sofa. She desperately needs sleep, but look what sleep just did to her. He'll keep her up for a while, and when she goes back to bed it will be with him. "Do you remember now? That you told Gates what happened in the motel?"

"Yeah."

"There's no guilt here. None. Minus none. Here's what I think. I think that there's some part of you that holds yourself accountable for allowing–and you didn't allow it, you were forced–those sons of bitches to pour liquor down your throat. I hope, I wish, that you'll accept this from me. I'm not Doctor Burke, but I'm positive that he'd say the same thing, will say the same thing when you talk to him. You have an appointment with him tomorrow, right?"

He waits for her to respond, and gets an answering nod.

"I understand completely if you want to talk to Emily, too, just please don't think of it as a confession. You're not at fault, so no one has to grant you absolution. Maybe you believe that you need to absolve yourself. I wish I could help you."

She turns just enough that she can fit her forehead in the dip between his bicep and his shoulder. "You know those studies that patting a dog is good for you?" she asks. "That it lowers your blood pressure?"

"Uh, yes."

"That's how I feel when I press my head right here. I must sound crazy."

"Not really, but should I be jealous of Gummy?"

She kisses him on the arm. "No. It's just that I feel calmer when we sit like this. You make me feel calmer. Reassured. Loved."

That opens up everything, and they talk until they're talked out, about Bracken and Montgomery and her mother. They talk about her father's reaction–his relief, his pride, his love–when she'd called to tell him about the arrest. She hadn't wanted him to hear it from anyone but her. And at last they allow themselves to talk about them, what all this means to them.

She falls asleep in his arms. He'd be happy to stay this way for what remains of the night, but knows he'll regret it. Instead, he scoops her up and carries her to bed. The next thing he hears is the sound of a key in the front door, and he rolls out, grabs his robe, and shuts the office door behind him. Kate doesn't stir.

"Hi, Dad," Alexis says quietly, coming over to give him a hug. "Kate asleep?"

"Yes, thank God. Tough night, before." He looks down at Gummy, who is running back and forth between his legs. "Excuse me a second, your little brother seems to require some attention."

"Little brother? Oh, you've got it bad."

"I know, I know."

"You're really itching for a baby around the house aren't you? As in a human brother or sister for me."

"You could tell, huh?"

"Oh, please. How does Kate feel about it, if you don't mind my asking."

He gets the coffeemaker going before he replies. "She wants it, too. She wanted the year of sobriety before she'd even begin to think about it, and she has that, but I think that all this might set her back a little."

"Really? But she must be ecstatic about finally getting Bracken, isn't she?"

"Let's just say the circumstances leading up to it, what happened to her when she had to go on the run, were worse than anything I can imagine, and I make my living with my imagination."

"I'm sorry, Dad."

"I know you are. Thank you. And thanks again for everything. Hey, would you like me to make you breakfast?"

"No, thanks, I'm going to head back uptown. I'll take a coffee for the subway ride, though."/

"Attagirl. No Starbucks for you."

When his daughter leaves he pours a cup of coffee and takes it to Kate. "Sorry to wake you up," he says, perched on the edge of the bed next to her. "Sorry I didn't think to set the alarm. Your appointment with Doctor Burke is in ninety-five minutes. But I have a surprise for you."

"Dunno if I can handle a surprise yet, Castle."

"Oh, you can handle this." He walks to the door, opens it and says, "Good boy! Come on!" Gummy streaks across the room and hurls himself at her. She shrieks and laughs and claps her hands.

"You were right, Castle," she says a few moments later, while she tickles Gummy's belly. "This is one thing I can handle."

Gates had given her the week off–ordered her to take it–and she thinks about that off and on, throughout the week: what she can handle, what she can't, what she wishes she could, what she'll try her damnedest to do.

"You're thinking a lot, aren't you?" Castle says late on the fourth night, when they're side by side, brushing their teeth. She'd never thought about how strangely intimate an act it was, strange but wonderful.

"Yes. I'm sorry."

"Never apologize for thinking. You're just really quiet. It's fine. I know you have to chew on things by yourself sometimes."

"But you never bargained for this, Castle. So much Kate Beckett Time. That used to be an hour, not five or six, and not every day."

"It's not forever."

She puts her toothbrush in its holder. First she stares into the sink, and then she looks at him. Not at him directly, but at his reflection in the mirror. "I'm having a hard time letting go. Despite what you and Burke say. I can't let go of this guilt, this weakness. About the drinking. Not about killing the two men. They were going to kill me, and Bracken would have been unstoppable. But if I had the physical strength–and I don't know how the hell I did–to overpower them, why didn't I have the strength to stop them from making me drink?"

"I could give you a hundred answers to that," he says softly. "But I know that you have to come up with your own. And you will. I have not one iota of doubt. None. But I wish that you didn't have to. It breaks my heart." He reaches out to caress her cheek. "I wish that you could see yourself through my eyes."

"Thank you." It's all she can say, but there's so much more that needs to be expressed. Instead, she turns off the light and they go to bed.

She can't sleep. Lying on her back, she plays and replays what Castle had said, especially the coda, "I wish that you could see yourself through my eyes." She rolls onto her side and looks at him, just looks at him, then begins to trace a fingertip over one of his eyebrows. On the third pass, he wakes up.

"Hi," he says. "You okay?"

"Mmhmm. You know what? I wish you could see yourself through my eyes, too. So you would see that you are the best thing that ever happened to me. That no matter what, even if we're arguing about something, when I look at you my heart sings. You make everything an adventure for me. You make me laugh, but you have also have borne my grief for me. With me. You challenge me to come at things from every possible and impossible direction. Did you know that? If you don't, I should tell you every day. I should anyway, and I'm sorry that I haven't, especially lately."

"No apologies, remember?" His voice is thick.

They're silent for a long time, their breathing moderating slightly until they're completely in synch. "You know what else I haven't done since–. Since then."

He shakes his head.

"Get naked with you. I'll start." She pulls her camisole over her head and tosses it onto the floor. "Your turn," she says, reaching for the hem of his tee shirt. In seconds it's also on the floor.

"Is this going where I think it's going?"

"I sure as hell hope so."

Maybe it's because she was able to tell him what's on her mind, maybe it was the sex, maybe it's having Gummy back home, maybe it's a whole lot of things, but the next morning she feels better. The day after that, a little better still. Bit by bit, metaphorical brick after metaphorical brick, she's rebuilding her life. She and Castle are back at the precinct together. Gummy has a fantastic dog walker whom he loves but not, she is not more than willing to admit, as much as he loves the two of them.

She starts planning little surprises for Castle, and finds that she loves doing it. One night she pulls him up to the roof and hands him a small brown paper bag.

"What's this?"

"Take a peek."

"Ooh," he says, looking like a kindergarten kid. "Sparklers!"

"Yup, and I have the matches to light them. I'm not sure you're old enough."

"What's the occasion? The Fourth of July is weeks away."

"We can't have those fireworks on the roof, so this is my best shot at celebrating our independence from Bracken."

"Nice," he says. "Know what I'm going to do?"

"Nope."

"Write your mother's name in the air with my sparkler."

She kisses him so hard that he falls over.

One rainy weekend in August she secretly teaches Gummy a bunch of tricks and unveils them on four successive nights. Castle's favorite is "Find the remote," and he thinks their dog is a genius. "If David Letterman had 'Smart Pet Tricks' instead of 'Stupid Pet Tricks' he could be on the show."

On Sunday evening, September 28, she drags a box out of the front hall closet after dinner. "What's in there?" he asks. "Looks like it weighs a ton."

"It's for you. Open it."

His initial expression, shock, is taken over by alarm. "Kate." He's pale. "What is this?"

"Six bottles of your favorite single malt, and six bottles of your favorite wine."

"You can't do that."

"Of course I can. I ordered them, and they were delivered. I'm not going to drink them."

"I know you aren't. I know, but–"

"But nothing, Castle. Tomorrow is my second AA anniversary, and I don't want you to spend the rest of your life thinking that you can't drink because of me, that you can't keep liquor in the house because of me. You can."

The next night he comes to her meeting with her, as he had done a year before. On the way home she says, "Remember what I said to you this time last year?"

"Do I remember? I think of it every day. Every word. I can recite it."

You can?"

""Of course I can. I'm almost as smart as Gummy. You said, 'Let's get married. Let's get married and have a bunch of kids and adopt a dog'."

"We got married and we adopted a dog. I'm ready for the kids. Or kid. Start with one."

"Really? You're sure?"

"I'm sure. My birthday is seven weeks from today. Think you can knock me up by the time I turn thirty-five?"

"I'll do my best," he says, giving her his most irresistible smile.

"Good," she says. "Because I really, really love your best."

 **A/N** That's a wrap. Thank you all for your kind words.


End file.
